Introduction
Our aim in the present chapter is to draw some conclusions from a Barthian perspective as to how the political realm will and should take responsibility for economic life. We have already seen how God and humanity as known in the covenant of Jesus Christ took responsibility for economic life. In order to show how the state is called to take responsibility for economic life, we shall first show that there is a positive relation between the state and the history of the covenant. On the basis of that relationship, we shall see how the state should act responsibly in economic matters, given the character of economic responsibility as revealed in the covenant. Secondly, we shall show how the state is distinct from the history of the covenant. These distinctions will imply that there are significant limitations in the state's ability to follow the way of responsible economic action as revealed in the covenant. Our first step describes what the state is called to do given its positive relation to the covenant, and then, in light of its distinctiveness, what it will actually tend to do. Finally, in light of these two perspectives, the norm and the reality, we shall in the following chapter assess our concrete historical circumstances and offer suggestions for the present moment.
Two Basic Categories
We may summarily relate the state and covenant by making use of two basic categories. The first is history; the second is the concept of community. Within himself, God is historical in the dynamic encounter of the three modes as related by two issues (1.7). Outside himself, God acts historically; the covenant is a history, and we shall relate the state to the history of covenant. This history can be understood in two ways, in terms of a linear history, and in terms of the order of the times that exist historically. In a prior section, we have already discussed the priority of Jesus' time with respect to all other histories. We shall, in this chapter, organize our thoughts in terms of a linear history keeping in mind the priority of Jesus' history and its relation to all other times. In terms of a linear history, we have already established a positive relationship between Jesus and the history of Israel and from there to the history of creation. The history of Jesus in turn culminates in the resurrection, which forms the initial period of his three-fold parousia. These three periods, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the period between the times, and his final appearing, form a linear history which ends with his final return. The three-fold parousia is the final segment of a covenant history which began with the event of election, continued in the pre- history of creation with covenant as its internal basis, further continued with the old covenant in Israel and the new covenant in Jesus Christ, and concludes with Jesus' final return in which the covenant is fully realized. Our present moment in this history is the time of the middle period of Jesus' three-fold parousia. There is both unity and differentiation in how God acts in each of the three periods. Corresponding to the unity we will discover that God's actions in contemporary history reflect how God took responsibility for economic life as revealed in Jesus' first appearing as culminating in the resurrection. Corresponding to the differentiations, we will discover that the present period exists under a temporary limitation, and that this limitation leads to the condition that human societies, whether the church or the state, do not form themselves into communities which fully reflect the nature of responsible action as revealed in Jesus Christ. Therefore, we can expect both church and state to be limited in their capacity to act responsibly in economic matters.
Our second category is the concept of community. Within himself God is a community through the dynamic encounter of the three modes as related by two issues. In each of his historical acts he creates community. In election he chooses the whole of humanity in Jesus Christ. His aim is fellowship with this one great community. This one great human community exists as hidden in the covenant basis of creation, and in the eschaton there will be one great community as well. There is one community, both in origin, election, and goal, eschaton. Between creation and the eschaton, there are diverse communities, and Barth divides them into two major communities related as two concentric circles with their center Jesus Christ. The inner circle is Israel and the church; the outer circle is the state or the nations. Both these communities have their origin and goal in the one great community of election and eschaton. In discussing these relations, our emphasis will be church/state relations in respect to covenant since Barth worked out most of his ideas on the state in that context because of his involvement in the church's struggle against Nazism. Since the risen Christ is central to both church and state, he lives and acts in both. As he lives he acts to conform both church and state into communities that reflect the manner of his taking responsibility for economic affairs, and there is a response to his presence. The nature of the human response in the state differs from the human response as revealed in the church. Corresponding to these differences, the state is more severely limited in its ability to act responsibly in economic affairs, although its difference with the church is not absolute. Therefore, in a sense, the state is twice removed from Jesus Christ. First, there is the limitation of the middle period of Christ's parousia, a limitation which the church suffers as well. Secondly, there is the limitation that distinguishes the state from the church. The church does not suffer the second limitation in the same way as does the state. Given these limitations, however, there is still a similarity between the history of the nations and the covenant history. The similarity has its basis in the centrality of covenant of Jesus Christ for both state and church. On the basis of that similarity, Jesus Christ is the norm for all economic acts, and therefore is the norm by which the state is called to act. On the basis of the limitations, however, the state will act otherwise, and between the norm and the reality God's actions in this middle period may at times be dimly discerned as God works in spite of the state's limitations. This forms the basis of a political ethic with respect to economic life.
Individual and Corporate Responsibility
Finally, as we discuss the relation of church, state, and covenant, we will return to a matter first mentioned in connection with God's work in creation. When we speak of taking economic responsibility, to whom are we speaking? In light of our discussion up to this point, the primary actors have been the triune God, or the individual Jesus, although we did mention the nation of Israel as an economic agent in our discussion of Genesis. Are the ethical directives revealed in Jesus directed primarily toward individuals, and only subsequently toward communities, whether Israel, the church, or the state? In that view the primary purpose of the state may well be to avoid taking direct responsibility for economic life by providing a context in which free individual responsibility may be exercised. Or are the ethical commands primarily directed at communities, who then, as communities take direct responsibility for economic life with individual actions taking the form of concerted action with others? This question, of course, has affinities with the issue of socialism versus capitalism. To address this matter we must determine whether it is the community, or the individual, or both, who are the objects of the ethical commands as revealed in the covenant. We shall address this question as we proceed.
The Order of the Chapter
In light of the foregoing, we have the following order for the remainder of this chapter. Our first step will be to return to the doctrine of the Trinity. The great human community has its basis in the community of God's inner triune life, and the character of the human community has its basis in the nature of the triune community. Once we have described the inner-triune community, we will describe elements of the history of the covenant as the history of the community of God. Our basic objective is to describe the relations among church, state, and covenant in the present era; therefore, we will only briefly note the reality of community in election, its presence in creation, and its division into diverse communities as narrated in Babel. The history of Israel and the nations is akin to the church/state relations, and therefore we will consider elements of Israel's relations to the nations. Linearly speaking, the next moment is the coming of Jesus and the three-fold form of his presence which begins with the resurrection, continues with our time which is the middle period, and ends with his final coming. We will describe aspects of the three-fold parousia, and set the stage for a discussion of state and church in the middle period. We shall characterize the church, describe its relations to the state, and then characterize the state. In light of those considerations it will be seen that church and state have the same origin, center, and goal, and that both can be characterized through Word and Spirit or analogous concepts. By means of the state's relation to the covenant through the intermediary circle of the church, we will be able to grasp how the state is called to follow the path of responsible action in economic affairs, and given its distinctiveness, how it will fail to act responsibly. In light of its distinctiveness, we shall summarize these limitations, and specifically relate them to Barth's third concept of sin as resistance to the work of the risen Jesus as he works in the world today.
The Basis of Community within the Triune Life
God exists as three modes related by two issues and only in this way. The two issues are the eternal begetting of the Son and the procession of the Spirit. With respect to the second issue, the Spirit is God in his mode of relatedness. The Spirit is the event of community, the communion of love that exists between the Father and the Son. As the love that binds Father and Son together he is the relatedness between the two. The Spirit is the act or event of fellowship both within the triune life and in God's acts in the world, (1.3), (1.8) and (1.4). Wherever the Spirit acts, he relates, whether it be Father to Son, or church to Christ, world to church, or people to one another. As the communion of love, the Spirit is the event of relatedness, and we will characterize communities in terms of their acts of relatedness. The Spirit is not merely a relation between two modes, the Spirit is God, a mode of God. God is not two modes and one relation between them, but three modes, and one of those modes by appropriation creates relations as reflective of the Spirit as the communion between the Father and the Son. The Spirit acts as the one God acts, and conversely, when God acts he acts as a triunity, that is, God as community acts, just as the Spirit as the community in God acts. From this it follows that communities can act as one; their actions are not simply the aggregate of individual acts, but as individuals bound together in unity they act. As triunity, God acts as a community of three since God exists only as three modes in two issues. But God's actions as triunity include the ontological reality of the individual triune modes who act. The Father acts, the Son acts, and the Spirit acts, so that both communities and "individuals" exist and act within the mystery of the triune God. But the "individual modes" are not individuals in the modern sense of the term. Barth rejects the modern sense of the word "persons" as applied to the triune modes. Rather, the modes are "ways of being" of the one God. The modes are distinguished by their relations, they exist only in their relatedness, and no mode acts alone but only in concert with the others. Therefore, God as community of three exists, and acts as one, and each mode lives and acts only through its relations with the others in concert. Ad extra, God creates communities, and these communities act as one, and their members act together in concert in so far as the community reflects God's grace. As God acts he acts in a certain form and manner. His actions are not arbitrary. The form and substance of his actions are given in Jesus Christ as the revelation of God. This follows from the fact that the Father begets the Son and only the Son. Therefore, in acting in his mode as Spirit to create fellowship and community, God's actions have a form and substance as revealed in the Son. This follows from the filioque. From this it follows that communities are not only events of fellowship and relatedness, but acts of relatedness that take definite forms, not only in the relations among community members, but in the manner in which the community as a whole acts. In short, we have characterized the inner triune community of God as follows: God exists as a triune community, his mode as Spirit reflects God relation-creating actions, God never acts except in his form as inner-triune community so that the unity of community can act, and God's actions as a community of three takes a definite shape and form as given in the Son. Community is characterized by Spirit (events of relatedness) and Word (events of relatedness that act in specific ways), and they may act as one. We will, in subsequent sections, characterize communities as individuals bound together in acts of relatedness which may act as one, and their actions have specific forms or structures which characterize the community. In short, communities are characterized by Word and Spirit.
We are interested in the community of the state, and this will also involve a knowledge of the church. With respect to God's three great acts, creation, reconciliation, and redemption, Barth locates both state and church within the Christological sphere.(1) When we say that both state and church belong to the Christological sphere, it is implied that Barth appropriates them under his doctrine of the Son, and that we need especially to consider their existence as belonging to the covenant which culminates in Jesus Christ. We shall do this. The fact of appropriation, however, means only that a particular reality is best located in a specific point within the overall structure of theological thought. Since all modes of the Trinity are active in the acts of a specific mode, the community of both state and church belong in a peculiar way to God's acts as Father and Spirit as well, and they belong to God's overarching act as the one God, his election of Jesus Christ. With respect to election, creation, and redemption, however, church and state are not fully differentiated; all of humanity belong together as the one great human community. This one great community is the origin and goal of both church and state. church and state begin as one, they divide as narrated in the story of Babel, and they will be united in the age to come. We may now briefly indicate features of our treatment of election and creation in light of community, and then note certain aspects of Barth's treatment of Babel.
Election, Creation, and Babel
The event of election is the primary event by which God establishes a relationship between himself and his people.(2) Election is an act, and it is an act of relatedness which underlies all further acts of God. As an act of relatedness, it creates community between God and humanity. This community has a certain form which is similar to the image of the concentric circles. In the center is Jesus Christ, and in choosing Jesus Christ he chooses himself for humanity and humanity for himself. The election of Jesus Christ is simultaneously the election of a community and this community is the whole of humanity. This one great human community as intended by God for mutual fellowship is represented by an intermediary circle, that of Israel and the church which witness to humanity's obedience and disobedience to God's message of grace. Finally, there is, a third , outer circle, God's choice of the individual who chooses to receive or reject God's election in the concrete context of community. We may make three observations. First, the form of election involves relationship, with its aim being the whole of humanity with Jesus Christ as its representative and head. Secondly, the structure of God's choice reflects the order of concentric circles, the outer circle in this case being the individual. In other contexts, Barth will speak of the state as being the outer circle. Thirdly, we may note that Barth places the community prior to the individual. Barth consistently does this, since God first addresses communities, and then, in that context individuals.
We may also be brief in our treatment of how community relates to creation as appropriated under God the Father. We exegeted Genesis Christologically, on the basis that covenant is interior to creation and creation the external basis of covenant. In recalling Barth's description of the internal covenant, we may note that it always consisted of events of relatedness, and through these events community was formed. Salient examples would be the climaxes of both accounts. The first account reached its goal in the Sabbath rest in which God and his creatures fellowshipped together. The second account climaxed with Adam's cry of recognition at the gift of Eve. This event proclaims the love existing between men and women, and reflects the unity of Christ and his church. These events of relatedness were further reflected in Barth's anthropology in that people exist only in the event of encounter. Throughout the Christological exegesis there was an implicit communal structure. The best example of this was the geography of Eden. God in Christ was represented by the two trees which occupied the center of the Garden, the gardener was Israel and Eden its homeland, and the surrounding world watered by the rivers represents the world beyond Israel. In this image God sustained the surrounding world through Israel as seen in the great river that sprang forth from Eden. Here again the image of the concentric circles comes to the fore. In this connection we may note that the creation was not executed with sin in mind, though chaos hung over creation as an external threat. Prior to the eruption of this chaos there were no divisions within humanity, so that creation as originally conceived was the home of the whole of humanity as it will be when sin is finally conquered forever. Finally, we make take as the governing image of the whole of this dissertation the image of three concentric circles with each circle and the center being a history stretched out in time. At the center is Jesus Christ, an inner circle of Israel and the church, and outer circle of the nations, and finally the outermost circle of the external world.
Barth's treatment of Babel can be found in Church Dogmatics, Volume III, part 4. Volume III deals with the ethics of creation, and Barth makes several points relevant to our pursuit. First, Barth raises the question as to whether the state is an order of creation. If so, this would imply that the norm of the political order could be found in creation. This question arose through his encounter with the Third Reich with its emphasis on the Germanic people as constituting a political norm.(3) Barth emphatically rejects the notion that the state is an order of creation, rather it belongs to the covenant and must be considered under the command of God the reconciler. "The form of the command particularly in question is its political form which we shall have to consider in the context of the doctrine of reconciliation, namely the call of God to the state, which is not an order of creation but a genuine and specific order of the covenant."(4) Barth fortifies this conclusion through an analysis of Genesis 10 and 11 which discusses the emergence of the nations.(5) According to his exegesis the division into the nations, Genesis 10 and 11, takes place after creation which ends in Gen. 2. The history subsequent to creation is the time of the covenant. In this period the nations develop naturally as part of one great family, Gen. 10, but then are scattered as in the story of Babel, Gen. 11. God's act of confusing their language is an act of judgment with an undertow of grace. By this act he prevents their concerted actions from working to their own destruction. Sin, and God's countering grace, belong to the covenant. The nations serve as a bulwark against sin, but not as an order of creation prior to Jesus Christ, but rather as the outer circle of his grace. The story continues with the special history of the covenant, the call of Abraham in Gen. 12. At that point the history of the nations falls into the background, but they are not forgotten. The problem posed by Babel is solved in the covenant, and specifically at Pentecost the original unity of the race is restored. The governing image of Barth's discussion is of an original unity of the nations, their scattering, and then the special history of the covenant with its community being Israel, surrounded by the history of the nations as the community beyond Israel.(6) It is through Israel that God works to save the nations, and these nations are represented to God by Israel and her national history. Eschatologically; their histories will converge; at Pentecost the borders of Israel were extended through a new Israel which proleptically embraced the nations as belonging to the one family of God.(7) Since the nations belong to the Christological sphere, our results, which have their basis in the covenant of Jesus Christ, apply to the nations, and we cannot look to an order of creation to supply the norms by which nations, persons, and classes relate to one another in the political or social aspect of economic affairs.
Since the state belongs to the Christological sphere, Barth's most pronounced treatment of the state within the Church Dogmatics is found in volume four on Barth's Christology, and especially in book three which treats of Christ's prophetic work. Volume four, book three, emphasizes the prophetic work of Jesus Christ, and in relation to him, the prophetic role of Israel and the church in world history. Barth's treatment centers on the church and its role in world occurrences, and, in that context, he relates the church to the state and thereby sheds light on his view of the state. A stronger presentation of church, state, and their relations, can be found in the three essays of Community, State, and Church. These three essays, written in 1935, 1938, and 1945 emerged out of the struggle between church and state in Germany during the Second World War and constitute an important source for Barth's social thought.(8) Elements of Barth's views of the centrality and relatedness of Israel and the church with respect to the nations can also be found in his doctrine of Providence in III:3. Barth appropriates providence to the Father; its concern is general history as coordinated to the history of the covenant, and this of course includes the history of the nations. Since, however, the state properly belongs to the Christological sphere, Barth does not present a detailed investigation of church/state relations in that context. We will go forward by making a brief comment on Barth's doctrine of Providence, simply to note its conformity with the basic image of the centrality of the covenant history and its two communities of Israel and the church. Then we will enter directly into the Christological sphere, and describe elements of Barth's understanding of Israel's prophetic mission to the nations as described in volume four, book three, as this is pertinent to our results. Our next step will be Jesus' three-fold parousia, as this sets the stage for the existence of the church in the world, its relations with the state, and the character of the state itself.
A Note on Providence
Providence refers to God's work in the world beyond the sphere of the covenant. God has chosen to reveal himself in the covenant; in the world beyond the covenant his rule is hidden yet comprehensive. Since his rule in general events is hidden, Barth appropriates providence under God the Father as this mode refers to God's inscrutability and remoteness. Although God's rule in the world is hidden, it is not aimless, nor is it a general rule of abstract omnipotence. The God who rules the world is the Father of Jesus Christ.(9) In the event of the Word, God's rule in general affairs can be perceived, but never apart from the Word. The aim of God's rule is the integration of general world history into the history of the covenant.
That world history in general is the history in which God executes His will of grace must thus be taken to mean that in its totality it belongs to this special history; that its lines can have no other starting-point or goal than the one divine will of grace; that it must converge on this one thin line and finally run in its direction. This is the theme of the doctrine of providence.(10)
When we remember that the two primary communal forms of the covenant history are Israel and the church, it follows that both communities share their origin and goal with the world community, and both exist as a center for the outer world community. For this reason, still in the context of his discussion of providence, Barth will say that Israel and the church occupy a central position in God's providential governance of the world.(11) The primary distinction between Israel and the church on the one hand, and the nations on the other, is that the nations belong to the outer sphere of God's providence. God works in this outer sphere, but the center of his revelation is the covenant as revealed to Israel and the church. When God acts in this outer sphere, it is always as reflections or in correspondence to his action in the covenant itself, and not as an independent revelation.(12) Since the nations do not directly have their basis in God's revelation, they do not govern themselves according to God's purposes, nor are their histories a normative reflection of God's revelation. Nevertheless, since God is coordinating their national histories with the covenant, they are called in its direction, and Jesus Christ is the basis and norm of their life as well.
In our final chapter we shall integrate an empirical socioeconomic analysis with our Barthian results in order to illuminate one aspect of contemporary economic life. Since economic life has its basis in social history (2.3), our socioeconomic analysis will take an historical form. We shall describe events in the outer sphere of the nations, and integrate this general history with the history of the covenant. In order to do this, Barth recommends that we adopt a conceptual apparatus by which to interpret historical experience. These conceptual systems can be borrowed or adapted from cosmological systems or even from the social sciences. In Barth's view such conceptual systems are important, for they enable us to orient ourselves in history and to reach practical decisions. "Man makes such conceptions. It is inevitable that he should do so, for otherwise he would not be capable of any practical orientation and decision. It is difficult to see how to forbid this. It belongs to his very life as man to do it."(13) In our case we shall adopt elements of a Marxist historical analysis. We must have access to historical facts in order to integrate general history into the history of the covenant, and we will need to coordinate certain Marxist concepts to our Barthian ones in order to understand the historical data from a Barthian perspective. We are free to do so, provided that the use of such an analysis does not replace an understanding of God's providence, nor can its use be given constructive significance or raised to the status of dogma. We cannot, in other words, adopt the Marxist view of history willy-nilly, but loosely and partially, and with the expectation that Barth's theological perspective will contradict the Marxist view of history at its crucial points. Specifically, in Barth's words, we cannot "believe, as did Karl Marx, in a purpose of history worked out in the clash and counter-clash of the economic classes culminating in the victory and liberation of the economically oppressed."(14) Nevertheless, we will need to give an account of the outer sphere of national histories, and we shall present our reasons for utilizing a Marxist account in the final chapter.
Israel's Prophetic History
Barth develops the third Christological aspect of the work of Jesus Christ in book three of volume four of the Church Dogmatics. The theme of the book is the prophetic work of Jesus Christ. By virtue of his priestly and kingly office, Jesus completely effected reconciliation among peoples and with God. In that sense the first two Christological aspects complete Jesus' ministry, but this completed work then shines out into, affects, and overcomes the world.(15) That is Jesus' prophetic ministry. Since the theme is Jesus' work in the world, it is to be expected that book three of volume four of the Church Dogmatics would treat of such matters as the relations among Jesus, the church, and the nations. This is indeed the case. In the preface to this volume Barth makes the comment that his "task is to try to discover the by no means self-evident presuppositions" concerning the relationship between "Christ (or the Church) and the world."(16) Barth opens the volume with a Christological section in which he develops a doctrine of Christ's prophetic ministry. Included in this discussion is a treatment of the relations among Jesus' history, the history of Israel, and that of the nations. This discussion lays the foundation for what follows. After a transition section on the Spirit, Barth builds upon this foundation and discusses the church's prophetic witness in the world under the title "The Holy Spirit and the Sending of the Christian Community."(17) The nature of the church's presence in the world has its base in Christ, and one aspect of the person of Jesus Christ and his relation to the world is given in the prophetic history of Israel. We will now describe elements of Israel's prophetic history as significant for how Christ, Israel, and the church are related to the nations. Barth portrays Israel's history as an inner circle mediating between Christ at the center and the outer circle of the nations.(18) His description of Israel's mediating role also sheds light on the issue of how individuals and nations are to respond to Christ's prophetic call. Therefore it merits our attention.
After an introductory section on the biblical evidence for Christ's prophetic ministry, and material on the church's response,(19) Barth begins to lay the foundation for how Christ relates to the world in the section entitled "The Light of Life."(20) First, Barth makes the point that Christ shines out into the world. His life is, in itself, witness. He not only lived in Galilee, but he lives now, and in his living he acts, and these acts affect people and the social and economic forms of their existence. But this raises a question: Who is this Jesus Christ that lives and acts, both in his original history and in the world? We have already discussed the fact that Christ cannot be known apart from the Old Testament witness (3.1), and in the context of Jesus' prophetic ministry, Barth relates Christ to the prophetic aspect of the Old Testament covenant. First, he shows that Jesus Christ in his prophetic witness breaks through and transcends the witness of the Old Testament prophets as individuals.(21) Having first pointed out that none of the Old Testament prophets as individuals can be correlated to the prophetic witness of Jesus Christ, Barth goes on to say that the history of Israel as one people, as the history of a nation, can be correlated to the prophetic history of Jesus Christ. In saying this, Barth insists that Jesus is the origin, basis, and goal of Israel's covenant history in its prophetic aspect. He understands the prophetic history of Israel as a foreword or pre-history of Jesus' history. This foreword belongs to Jesus Christ in that he fulfilled its original hopes and intentions.(22) As a national history, the history of Israel can be correlated with the history of Jesus Christ in four ways which distinguish its national history from that of the individual prophets. The national history of Israel as a whole is a prophetic history from the beginning, it is a universal history addressed to the nations and to all people, real salvation occurs within Israel and on that basis it speaks its word, and the national history as a whole has a mediating character.(23) Within this context, we wish to emphasize several points. First, the information presented here by Barth corresponds to the image of the two concentric circles with Israel as the inner circle. "This then is the centre--this time between God and the world--in which the divine-human history of Israel takes place, itself the copy yet the original of world history. And taking place in this centre, as history at this point, it is revelation, i.e., eloquent, prophetic history."(24) Secondly, it is to be noted that the counterpart to Jesus Christ is not the individual (the individual prophets), but rather, the nation as a whole. Thirdly, in saying that Israel's history is a foreword, or that it belongs to the history of Jesus, Barth means that Jesus acts in the world in his own history, and that his history includes this foreword through which Jesus acts though in a veiled manner. Jesus' action in Israel was hidden, to be revealed only in his life which was then seen as the fulfillment of Israel's prophetic action. But the community of Israel together with the church, was and is the body of Christ acting in the world as the inner circle based upon Jesus Christ as its center.
Even in those times was not ancient distant Israel, no less than they themselves [the church] as the community of the Messiah who had appeared and come, and together with them, His body, the earthly- historical form of His existence, the only difference being that Israel had taken one form before His appearance, whereas they themselves had necessarily assumed their own form after this appearing?(25)
As the community of Christ in the world, the nation of Israel reflected Jesus' history, and given that Jesus is the head of the world community, his and Israel's actions become both grace and command for the nations. It is grace in that God coordinates the history of the nations to the covenant history of reconciliation, and command in that all nations are destined for the Lordship of Christ. In that sense Israel's national history is a word addressed beyond itself to the nations and the men of the nations. "If the one God lives in covenant with the one people, and the one people, on the same earth and among all others, in covenant with this one God, then with this event there is created among all nations an example or living model which cannot fail to have a message for these nations, but actively and effectively speaks as such."(26) Or Barth will say that Israel's history is a summons to the nations to "know and accept and allow to be worked out that which in the decree concerning Israel is decided and already being effected for them, and therefore, as partners in the covenant made with Israel, taken up into fellowship with this one people of the one God, to confess this membership and therefore themselves and their own destiny."(27) Israel's history is a model and summons in that God is working within the nations as he worked in the history of Christ and within Israel, with the final eschatological aim of reuniting the history of the nations to that of Israel. Since God works in the nations according to his work in Israel, his work in Israel becomes the key for understanding God's actions in contemporary history. In Barth's words: "In all these things the history of Israel is a paradigm or model for the history of the nations, and to the extent that it is prophecy, and is known as such, it is the key to understanding of world history."(28) In conclusion we may say that the counterpart to the individual history of Christ is the community, and in its Old Testament form the community was the nation of Israel. In its communal form it reflected Jesus' history, and thereby reflected responsible action for economic life as the norm for national action. From this it follows that our results apply first to nations, and then to individuals working in concert with others within national histories. Furthermore, we may say that our results as derived from the history of Israel, Exodus, conquest, Exile, as the central covenant event hidden in creation, Ahab, and Amos, are definitive results; they are the model of grace and command by which God rules all nations. We now want to focus on church and state, and from there to characterize the state. We will set the stage for this endeavor by describing elements of Jesus' three-fold parousia.
Jesus' Three-fold Parousia
Barth's doctrine of the parousia is the basis for his understanding of how the history of Jesus Christ is relevant to contemporary history, including the history of the nations. The word parousia itself means "effective presence."(29) Jesus' resurrection from the dead was the first and basic form of Jesus' effective presence. As we have seen, it is the event which reveals that Jesus is the basis of all other times, and that he is present and active in these times. All three of Barth's major Christological sections on Jesus' priestly, kingly, and prophetic works, end with final sections describing how the resurrection provides the transition between Jesus' history and our history so that his life becomes the decisive determining factor of people's lives everywhere.(30) When we say that the resurrection is the event of transition we must keep in mind that it is a transition from, and only from, the history of Jesus Christ. That is, when Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to his disciples, he was the same Jesus who had lived before, and in all forms of his parousia as he becomes effectively present it is always as the one who lived before. This follows first from the fact that the resurrection summed up and revealed the whole of Jesus' prior reconciling work, and secondly, his resurrection on Easter is the basis of the second and third forms of his parousia in which he subsequently becomes present and active. From that angle there is only one parousia, for in every manifestation of Jesus' effective presence it is always the same Lord who is present and active.
In all these forms it is one event. Nothing different takes place in any of them. It is not more in one case or less in another. It is the one thing taking place in different ways, in a difference of form corresponding to the willing and fulfillment of the actions of its one Subject, the living Jesus Christ.(31)
Although the three parousia of Jesus are alike in that it is always the same Lord who reveals himself, they are different in that the manner of his appearing changes in each of the three forms. In the first form Jesus appeared directly, historically and perceptibly present to his disciples. With the event of the ascension of Jesus and the descent of the Spirit, Jesus' active presence upon earth changed form. The new form characterizes the middle period of Jesus' parousia. It is the time of present history. The ascension is the event which, in Barth's view, terminates and elevates the history of Jesus Christ above all other events, giving it the status of the ontological foundation of all divine and corresponding human acts. By virtue of the ascension, he is no longer present in a direct perceptible form. He is not, however, altogether absent. He is made present by the Spirit as first given on Pentecost.(32) The ascended Christ rules the world as he acts in the Spirit. His presence by the Spirit characterizes our time as the middle form of Jesus' parousia. The Spirit, is, in the simplest characterization, Jesus speaking and acting. As Christ rules by the Spirit, he encounters people and nations and they are transformed. The manner of this encounter is the miracle of the Spirit. It is not the product of historical immanence or causality. Apart from the Spirit's creative work there is no transition from Jesus' time to other times. In this middle form Jesus is not incarnate as in his first appearing. He speaks and acts indirectly--his words and deeds above all are mediated by Scripture as proclaimed in the Christian community. This does not mean that Jesus does not act throughout the world in other events; he does, but these events reveal him only if they point to the revelation proclaimed and known only in Scripture. As the risen Jesus speaks and acts in the world, the reconciliation of all as already realized in him becomes a present reality. He transforms the world. The essence of that transformation is crucifixion and resurrection. God is always acting to bring the old things to an end, and to create a new world in the midst of the old. The creation of the new involves the transformation of material existence. Keeping in mind that Jesus' resurrection was physical, and that Jesus dwells physically with the Father for all eternity, the action of the risen Jesus in the world today has a physical component. "It must be said that as the One who has lived once He lives and will live. To avoid misunderstanding, we add that He does not merely do so spiritually but physically, in the very spatio-temporal form of His then history."(33) In other words, God is working in the world to restore humanity's bodily existence, and his present actions are reflections of how economic life was originally restored as given in the history of Jesus. In saying this, we must keep in mind that the history of Jesus Christ both fulfills and includes the history of Israel and the prior connected history of creation. From this it follows that all our results, in so far as they reflect the nature of God's acting responsibly in economic matters, are descriptions of God's work in the world today.
There is, however, a temporary limitation on the visible manifestation of God's rule in the middle period.(34) Barth likens the time between Jesus' first and final appearing to the time of his being in the tomb.(35) In this time between the times Jesus' rule, power, and effective presence are only dimly seen at best, and held and perceived only in faith. Neither the church nor the state will fully respond to Jesus' rule as determining responsible action in economic affairs. Both will subject themselves to alien powers and ideologies. The course of chaos and human sin runs on. The promised liberation, the time of economic plenty, and the reign of peace effected through the reconciling work of Jesus Christ are scarcely visible in the world.(36) This does not mean that Jesus does not act and rule. He acts and rules, and he calls people to discern the direction of his service and act accordingly. This temporary limitation on God's rule as known in Jesus does not, however, imply any devaluation of this middle time. It has its importance in God's reign; it serves God's glory and human salvation by making space and time for their effective work.(37)
The limitations of this middle time are, however, only temporary. The third form of Jesus' parousia is his final coming.(38) Barth appropriates this event under the work of the Holy Spirit as the third of God's major triune acts. In this third act, the Spirit will reveal Christ in all his fullness. He will be visible to all, and the limitation of the present age will pass away. The glory that appeared to the disciples in the resurrection will be universally apparent. At that time the full reign of God will occur, and the reconciliation of all peoples with God that took place for all in Jesus' history will be made manifest to all. The reign of economic blessedness that we have discerned in the rule of Christ on earth will be fully realized.(39) The basis of this future hope does not arise out of the limitations of the present era, but rather, out of the fullness of Jesus himself, present and active in his resurrection and pressing onward toward the goal of all time--his final appearing and the redemption of all life.
We may now draw the following conclusions. First, the results we have obtained on how responsibility can be taken for economic life apply to the world today since God in Jesus acts as repetitions or reflections of how he worked in the covenant. God's work also reflects God's purposes for bodily well-being since God is presently active in terms of Jesus' original spatio-temporal existence. There is, however, a temporary limit on the nature of Jesus' work in the world. He is only indirectly present by the Spirit, and his work is only dimly perceived by faith. In many respects the power of sin and chaos holds sway, and it limits both church and state; but even so, there is time and space for God's purposes, and he rules the affairs of this world in preparation for Jesus' final coming in which his work will be made fully manifest.
The Church as Formed by Word and Spirit
The coming of Jesus introduced a new era with its three forms. Our present time is the middle form of Jesus' appearing. Although Barth will speak of both Israel and the church's being central to the state during this middle period, his emphasis is on the church's being central. This middle period is the time of the church. Our goal in this section is to summarize aspects of Barth's doctrine of the church, and in that context, begin to describe his doctrine of the state. We shall begin by characterizing the church in terms of Word and Spirit. Then we shall characterize the state in terms analogous to Word and Spirit. This characterization in terms of Word and Spirit is possible since both communities are one in origin and goal, and each has its origin in the inner-triune community. Barth specifically characterizes the church in terms of Word and Spirit. He does not so directly characterize the state in this fashion, but we will show that an analogous characterization helps to bring order into the many statements Barth does make on the nature of the state. The fact that both church and state can be characterized in terms of Word and Spirit will give us an effective way of noting the differences and similarities between these two communities. Therefore, we shall continue by first characterizing the church in terms of Word and Spirit. In that context we will differentiate it from the state, and thereby characterize the state. Finally, we will describe the final destiny of both church and state, the eschatological Kingdom. As we proceed we will investigate the nature of corporate and individual responsibility.
All three books of Barth's volume four of the Church Dogmatics present the same form. Each possesses three initial Christological sections followed by a section on the Christian community and ending with a section on the individual Christian in community.(40) Each of the three ecclesial sections are entitled "The Holy Spirit and the gathering (or upbuilding or sending) of the Christian Community." Each of these ecclesial sections corresponds in content to its prior Christological sections. Several observations are in order. First, ecclesiology follows Christology in that every ecclesial reality or statement has its basis in Christology. The church exists only in so far as it is determined by Jesus Christ. Second, the titles of the ecclesial sections indicate that it is the reality of Spirit that shapes the Christian Community into conformity with the Word. The church is the product of Word and Spirit.(41) And thirdly, the community is placed before the individual, in that the work of the Spirit is to call, upbuild, and send communities, and then individuals are directed by the Spirit as they exist in community.(42)
When Barth says that the church is determined by Word and Spirit, he understands the matter in a dynamic triune sense. God speaks his Word who is Jesus Christ. When God speaks, Jesus Christ becomes present in the second form of his parousia. In becoming present, and this especially occurs in preaching based upon the biblical witness, Jesus creates the church as the community of people who by the subjective work of the Spirit respond to him as God's Word. With this event the church is shaped into a correspondence and reflection of the risen Jesus. This correspondence can be expressed in a variety of ways. For example, Barth will say that the church is the body of Christ, that it is one as God is one, that it is set aside for a purpose (holy) as Christ was and is holy, that it grows into the fullness of Christ, and that it acts prophetically in the world as the risen Jesus acts in the world.(43) All of these statements regarding the church are valid only in the event of God's speaking, only as the Spirit gives the church reality in accordance to the Word. Apart from this event there is no church. Rather, the sociological form designated as "the church" is not the true church as created in the event of Word and Spirit, but a social grouping perishing under the judgment of God the Father's remoteness. In other words, the church, in so far as it exists, is constituted as events of relatedness, the events of relatedness to its head, Jesus Christ being the primary relationship. We may express this in a somewhat logical form by saying that when Christ is present the church exists, but not conversely. Or Barth will say that the church is the predicate of Jesus Christ, but not conversely, or that Christ is the community but not vice-versa,(44) Or, the church exists only in its witness to Christ' saving work for the whole of humanity, and never in its witness to itself as the vehicle of that salvation since it has no autonomous existence apart from God's continued acts.(45) Because of the limitations of the present period of Jesus' parousia, the correspondence of the church to the Word is scarcely perceived, and believed and known only in faith. Apart from the event of the Spirit's granting faith to believe that the risen Jesus creates his church, the general social phenomenon called the church cannot be seen to exhibit the characteristics of the Lord's presence. This is as true of economic affairs as anything else. Since the church exists only in relation to its head, it will, through its corporate actions, witness to and reveal the nature of responsible living in economic affairs as given in the covenant. The church does do this, but that this occurs is given only in the moment of faith, when the Spirit both creates responsible living and enables that life to be known as a gift of God. In short, the church exists only in the dynamic triune event of Word and Spirit. In that event it is conformed to Jesus Christ, and thereby witnesses to and is called to witness to its living Lord. From this it follows that the church is called to manifest responsible action for economic affairs as known in the covenant, and that it does so by grace as apprehended in faith.
In light of our discussion of the inner triune relations, we characterized communities as events of relatedness given through Word and Spirit. With respect to the church, these events take three primary forms--those events of relatedness shaping the church into conformity with its head Jesus Christ, internal relations among members, and the events constituting the church's relations with the exterior world. We will discuss all three of these events of relatedness.
The Church as the Body of Christ
An initial and primary sense in which Barth understands the church is that it is the body of Christ with Jesus Christ being its heavenly head.(46) In the biblical sense the body is the "seat of the earthly-historical life" and "the medium of man's experience and suffering, the organ or instrument of his activity."(47) The church as the body of Christ means that its earthly-historical existence is constituted by its events of relatedness to Jesus Christ, and that through this relation Jesus Christ acts and lives within the church and upon earth and in history. The people of Israel and the church since Pentecost are the two inseparable forms of Jesus' body.(48) As indicative of the relatedness of the community to its head, Barth will say:
Its [the church] basis and truth and continuance are therefore in the choice and decision, the work and the living Word of Jesus Christ Himself. Thus in the particular activity which distinguishes it as His community in the world it does not belong to itself, but to Him; it does not live of itself, but can only follow the movement of His life; it has not to present and maintain and carry through to success its own cause, but (notwithstanding all the humanity, all the corruption and lostness which characterise the men united in it) can reflect and illustrate and in that way attest in its own activity His activity."(49)
The character of the church as events of relatedness to Christ is indicated by such statements as that it lives as it "follows the movement of His life", as it can "reflect and illustrate" and "attest" his activity, and only as it is "given and demanded" that it do this. Furthermore, when we say that the church exists only in relation to its head, we also say that the church as a whole exists as one community whose individual character resides in its head Jesus Christ. Certainly the body is made of many members, and each as individuals who will and act, but these members constitute the church only through God's act and their obedience, and through their obedience the character of the head is impressed upon the community as a whole. This is evident from the fact that Barth's discussion of the body of Christ refers only to the community as Christ's body, and never to individuals. The result is that the church exists as a social whole. It acts only through its relatedness to its head, and in that form it acts as he acts, and lives as one as he lives as one. Furthermore, the actions of this one community proclaim and herald the impending unity of the whole of humanity as already died and resurrected with Jesus Christ.(50) In sharing the one cup and the one bread, for example, the community represents the unity of the whole of humanity as determined for the blessing of the final kingdom. "If it has a right understanding of itself in its common breaking and eating of the one bread and therefore in its concrete life as a community, then as the body of Christ it has to understand itself as a promise of the emergence of the unity in which not only Christians but all men are already comprehended in Jesus Christ."(51)
One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic
These conclusions are strengthened by considering elements of Barth's discussion of the church as being one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. The image that emerges through his discussion is of a social whole which is unified, consistently the same in all times and places, set aside for a common purpose, and created by means of the apostolic witness as known in Scripture. We may make several observations about these characteristics of the church. First, each of these characteristics occurs only in the event of the church's being created by Word and Spirit. The church, for example, is one because it is created by God who is one, and thereby reflects God's oneness in the event of its creation.(52) The unity of God includes all his acts, including both church and Israel as the inner circle with Christ as center through which God speaks to the whole of humanity.(53) The fact that there are divisions is the consequence of sin, but these divisions do not belong to the essence of the church since Christ is not sinful and the church exists only in the moment of its relatedness to Christ. Therefore Barth will comment, "Certainly there is no trace of this plurality in the New Testament, and in view of the being of the community as the body of Christ it is--ontologically, we can say--quite impossible; it is possible only as sin is possible."(54) As in the case of the church's unity, so with respect to its catholicity, its holiness,and its apostolicity--all derive from the fact that the church arises through its relation to Jesus Christ as revealed in the biblical witness. The church is catholic because God is consistent and acts similarly in all times and places, it is set aside for a specific purpose (holy) since it derives from Christ its head who is holy, and it is apostolic in that it is related to Christ through the apostolic witness.(55) Secondly, all of these characteristics of the church are characteristics of the community as one, and not first of the individuals who give the community this character as derivative of their individual qualities. For example, the word holiness means set aside, differentiated, or singled out in a peculiar fashion to receive God's grace and to carry out a specific task in obedience to him. The church is holy because God has set it aside and marked it off from the world and made it the peculiar recipient of his grace.(56) The holiness of the church does not, however, consist of the aggregate holiness of its individuals, but rather the work of the church as a whole. The community as a whole is separated out for God's purposes, the people of Israel being Yahweh's partner in the Old Testament, and the community the partner of Jesus Christ in the New.(57) Or again, with respect to catholicity, the common faith and practice of the church is not the result of individuals' defining or arriving at a common point of view. Jesus Christ is the source of the church's faith and practice. He reveals himself as the same in all times and places, so that the catholicity of the church is prior to individual agreements, and emerges as the whole church seeks to hear and follow him. "As the body of Jesus Christ conjoined with its Head it has priority over its members and it has to maintain this priority not only for the sake of the Head but also for that of the members. That is what 'catholic' means in this dimension."(58) The individualistic view, especially common in modern Protestantism since the eighteenth century, has no place in Barth's theology.
The Upbuilding of the Community
Similar results can be obtained if we consider the upbuilding of the community. Barth describes the upbuilding of the community in the context of Jesus' kingly work.(59) As the Spirit works to relate people to Christ, he simultaneously creates a second and related event of relating members to one another. As these relations are formed, the church experiences its upbuilding. All relations, whether to Christ as head or among church members, are the work of Word and Spirit. This is the primary emphasis of Barth's initial section on the upbuilding of the Christian community,(60) and he expresses the matter as follows: "The Christian community, the true Church, arises and is only as the Holy Spirit works--the quickening power of the living Lord Jesus Christ. And it continues and is only as He sanctifies men and their human work, building up them and their work into the true Church."(61) We may note that Barth says that the church "only exists" as the "Holy Spirit works" by which it is meant the actions of the people who work together to form the church constitute the true church only when they are "inaugurated and controlled and supported"(62) by the risen Lord. Community members do many things, their actions are a mixture of sin and obedience. But only those actions which follow from grace constitute the internal relations that form the true church. Furthermore, as in other contexts, Barth makes it plain that the object of Christ's work in upbuilding the community is first the community as a whole, and in that context, the individual in community.(63)
Barth uses two images to describe the upbuilding of the Christian community. The first image is that of an edifice constructed by a builder, the second, the image of organic growth.(64) In both cases, it is God who builds and gives increase, and the object of his work is first the Christian community, and then the individual in community.(65) As the living Jesus nourishes and builds the entire community, the members follow His actions in their actions, and as a result of this two-fold divine/human action the community experiences growth and integration. A common feature of Barth' description of how the community grows and is constructed is that of the establishment and transformation of the mutual relations that bind the members together. With respect to these Barth uses such phrases as "mutual love," "mutual adaptation," "reciprocal dependence and support,"(66) and he describes the New Testament word for "upbuilding" as follows:
In fact, the true form of this sunarmologein [being fitted together] in the New Testament seems to consist always in an action as between man and man which necessarily has the character of agape. And the simplest form of this action consists in a reciprocal relationship in which the one man is neighbor and brother to the other, and vice versa, and they meet and act accordingly.(67)
The community as relatedness is emphasized by the fact that it exists when members have salt and keep peace among themselves, as they admonish, forgive, subject themselves to one another, and practice hospitality and bear one another's burdens.(68) The event and events of upbuilding or integration can also be described as the communion of saints.(69) The communion of saints consists of acts that draw people together, as in the fellowship of thankfulness and thanksgiving, of penitence, of prayer, of service, hope, and worship, and in a mutual relationship to the world.(70) In the context of the communion of saints and their mutual upbuilding and integration, growth occurs. The community grows, not only numerically, but, as Barth describes it, in terms of its mutual relations. When this is described biblically, it entails such expressions as growth or increase in the knowledge of God, in endurance, patience, grace, comfort, steadfastness, knowledge, zeal, and the works of the Lord.(71) All of these words are to be understood as an increase in the power to act in relation to others and to the world. As this occurs, both in upbuilding and in growth, the distinct peculiarities and individual differences of community members are brought together and respected, and their individual life is enhanced through their mutual relations.(72) In short, the community exists through its events of relatedness. It lives and acts as one with its direction given through its relation to its head, and in that context, individuals live in relation to one another.
We have shown that the church is characterized by Word and Spirit. We have described in brief its relation to its head and its internal relations among members. We may now consider aspects of its relations to the world around it. Barth gives the church an eschatological reference when he describes it as the "provisional representative of the whole of humanity." We will describe what he means by this, relate the matter to the state, and in that context, perceive the significance of community for the final eschatological age.
Church, State, and Eschaton
What is the eschatological relation of the church to the whole of humanity, and specifically to the state? We will first determine the relationship of the church to the whole of humanity. Then, by showing that the state is the primary social form of the whole of humanity beyond the church, the eschatological relationship of the church with the whole of humanity will converge with that of its eschatological relationship to the state. With respect to the whole of humanity, the church, in Barth's words, is "the provisional representation of the whole of humanity." This phrase, which is found in all of Barth's introductory statements on the church,(73) is Barth's way of saying that the church now, in its existence between the times, witnesses and points to the Kingdom of God which is the final destiny of the great community that will come together in the final age. The church does this as it is the community of those who before all others have heard and responded to the Word of grace and been shaped thereby into conformity with its head, Jesus Christ. In him all people are bound together as one by virtue of the comprehensiveness of God's election. The church does not exemplify the Kingdom in any manifest or determined fashion apart from faith. Its unity and holiness, the mutual love of its members, and its service to the world, all exist and provisionally manifest the work of Christ within it, but this witness is known only in faith. The church, as do all social forms, exists under the limitation of the present age. In that sense the church's witness is provisional, it is "fragmentary and incomplete and insecure and questionable; for even the community still participates in the darkness which cannot apprehend, if it also cannot overcome, the light (Jn. 1:5)."(74) The church's witness, is not, however, ineffective. The risen Jesus Christ does conform the church to himself, and thereby fits it for a suitable and effective witness and work in the world.(75) The word "provisional" also has an important eschatological reference. It represents the unity, love, and mutual service that will eschatologically exist as the future of the whole of humanity. In this respect an important concept is the fullness of Christ, his pleroma. The church is the pleroma of Christ. It is the impending fullness of Jesus' being, and, as such, it reaches out to embrace in an eschatological sense the totality of the cosmos.(76)
If the community for its part is the pleroma [fullness] of Him who is Himself the pleroma of the cosmos, this means that in the full measure of its compass it will embrace no more, but no less, than the cosmos. In other words, the totality of the heavenly and earthly world now has no existence distinct from that of the community, which is the pleroma tou Cristou(77)
The image here is that of Christ, and then his body the church which will eschatologically embrace the totality of the cosmos. There is an order in this image, first Christ, and then the church, and finally the totality of all things. There is no by-passing the inner circle of the church. The church is a saving necessity. Not that the church saves; God saves, but he saves only as he unites people to one another as one community in Jesus Christ. Apart from God's act, and God's community creating act, there is no salvation.(78) Seen eschatologically, the true being and future of all people is to be established in the church as the body of Christ, and his body is destined to fill all things.(79) This implies that all of the characteristics of the church, its being as the body of Christ, its four- fold character as one, holy, catholic and apostolic, its upbuilding and growth, point to realities that will be finally realized in the eschatological age as God's intended destiny for all people in the one great community of God.
The center of the church is Jesus Christ. The center of the state is also Jesus Christ. The state, in Barth's view, is to be understood as a "divinely appointed institution, as an element of the lordship of Jesus Christ, as the great human representative of His lordship over the world outside, so that in a wider sense its officials can be regarded as 'ministers of God' (Rom. 13:6)."(80) The state is the great social form beyond the church, and therefore the church's eschatological relation to the state duplicates its eschatological relation to the whole of humanity since humanity exists only as it takes social forms. An important essay in this regard is the third essay of Community, State and Church. In the third and final essay, Barth points out that the final eschatological community is not that of the church, but that of the heavenly polis.(81)
Of one thing in the New Testament there can be no doubt: namely, that the description of the order of the new age is that of a political order. Think of the significant phrase: the Kingdom of God, or of Heaven, that it is called Kingdom of God or Heaven, and remember too, the equally 'political' title of the King of this realm: Messias and Kyrios. And from Revelation 21 we learn that it is not the real Church (ecclesia) but the real city (polis) that truly constitutes the new age. Or, to put it otherwise, the Church sees its future and its hope, not in any heavenly image of its own existence but in the real heavenly State.(82)
Barth makes the claim that the state is the future of the church in order further to establish that the heavenly polis is the future of the state as well.(83) In saying this Barth hastens to point out that neither church nor state can claim any direct identity with the future Kingdom. The future Kingdom belongs to the final eschatological age as the result of a revolutionary act of God as radical as creation and incarnation.(84) But that fact, that both will inherit the Kingdom of Christ, indicates that both have a common destiny, and both belong to the rule of Jesus Christ.
Some Conclusions
We now wish to present some conclusions relevant to God's actions in the state with respect to economic affairs. We have seen how God and humanity acted responsibly as revealed in the covenant of Jesus Christ. We have also seen that both Israel and the church exist only in relation to their head, and that their action follows his action. The state is unified with these covenant communities in origin and goal. The history of these covenant histories is the center line of world history (providence), Israel is the representative people of God's action for all people, and the church is the inner circle with respect to the nations in the outer sphere. For all these reasons, we may say that God's actions and their human responses as given in the covenant are reflected in the covenant communities, and from there they are reflected in the outer sphere of the nations or the state.(85) Upon this basis we shall draw some conclusions relevant to the state with respect to economic affairs. These conclusions have their basis in the similarity between church and state; they will be modified when we consider the distinctiveness of the state.
God is one, and his counterpart, the community, is one in its actions. This means that acting responsibly in economic affairs is an activity of the whole church which lives and acts as one under Jesus Christ. The state, together with the church belongs to the covenant, and therefore, there is nothing in principle that prohibits cooperation and mutual support between nations in economic affairs. Furthermore, it is the state as a whole which acts, and individual citizens act within the context of national social life. This follows from the fact that the nations are one with the church in origin and goal, that the church is the intermediary community, that the whole church is the counterpart of God's triune grace, and that the church is one as God is one. As both church and state act in economic affairs, there is mutual upbuilding and growth in relationships in which individual and national peculiarities are respected, fitted together, and enhanced. This is reflective of the upbuilding and growth of the community. Secondly, in acting as one the church reflects only the leadership of its head. Our results were obtained Christologically; they have their basis in Jesus Christ. The Spirit orders the church only in relation to its head, so that our results, in so far as they reflect Christ's work, are the only way that both church and state are called to act in economic affairs. Therefore both state and church are called to a direction of service among nations, classes, and persons, from strong to weak, from the rich for the poor. Since the church is holy it is set aside for acting in this fashion, and only in this fashion. There is no other way of acting responsibly in economic affairs. The grace and norms for economic responsibility are universal; they hold at all times and all places. This is the result of catholicity. Our results were derived from Barth, and his primary source was Scripture. This is apostolicity; the apostolic revelation is the norm for the church. All of these conclusions apply to the state as well since both church and state are under the lordship of Jesus Christ and united in origin and goal. In short, our results are the single, definitive, universal results, and their application leads to the only effective upbuilding of economic existence. In saying this, we must keep in mind that our conclusions, like all other events, participate in the limitations of the present era, and exist only in a weak, defective, and provisional form at the very best. Our next step is to characterize the state in terms of Word and Spirit, and further investigate its similarity with and distinctiveness from the church and thereby perceive the norm and reality of its actions in economic affairs.(86)
The State Characterized as Analogous to Word and Spirit
We have seen that Barth characterizes the church as events of relatedness formed by Word and Spirit.(87) Using related concepts, we now wish to give a brief characterization of the state. This characterization will help us to organize Barth's view of the state in its relation to Christ and the church. We may briefly say that the state exists in the event of its relatedness to Christ through the medium of Israel and the church as its inner circle. Corresponding to the Word as the source of order, the nations form themselves according to natural theologies or various ideologies as developed through their respective national histories. These ideological systems give the order for the internal and external relations of states. Capitalism, for example, is one such ideology shaping human relationships both economic and political. These ideological systems are partially embodied in Law. Since the state orders itself by natural philosophies, or ideological structures, it does not, like the church, order itself by the gospel. It does not confess Jesus as Lord, or intentionally submit itself to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This, in Barth's view, is how it should be. Were the state to attempt to pattern itself upon the gospel it would no longer be the state, but the church. This does not mean, however, that the mutual relations formed among members of the state, or among states, have nothing to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ, or even with the inner triune relations. The centrality of Jesus Christ with respect to the state implies that God secretly works in the state according to his work in Jesus Christ. In this fashion there is a positive relationship among Christ, the church, and the state. By virtue of the positive relationship, the state serves Christ by provisionally sanctifying the whole of humanity beyond the church. There is a limit, however, on this exterior work of sanctification. Since the state is shaped by norms other than the gospel, is can sanctify the world beyond the church only in a relative, provisional, and external way. Nevertheless, this limited work is important, it is a work of grace, and essential until the time when Christ's rule will be fully manifest. Corresponding to the Spirit, the power by which the state orders its relations is force, force used in the service of Law. Unlike the church, the state should not be ordered by the Spirit of love. The state cannot claim ultimacy for itself, and therefore it cannot command the ultimate allegiance and love of its citizens. When it does so, it becomes the demonic state, a state that has placed itself in God's place. It can command only a limited external obedience of compulsion, but this rule of law reflects in a remote way Christ's rule of love as realized in the church and known in faith. In short, Word and Spirit for the church correspond to ideologies and force for the state. We shall now discuss these matters in greater detail. Since law is an important concept in Barth's doctrine of the state, we will begin by discussing how state law is distinct from but positively related to the law of Christ.
Gospel, Church Law, and State Law
The positive relation between God's grace in Jesus Christ and state law stems from two considerations. First, there is a positive relation between God's grace and God's law, and secondly, there is a positive relation between God's law and the law of the state. An important essay for understanding the relationship between gospel and law is the essay by that name published in 1935. This essay, together with two other essays on the theme of church and state, can be found in Barth's Community, State, and Church. These three essays, written in 1935, 1938, and 1945 emerged out of the struggle between church and state in Germany during the Second World War and constitute an important source for Barth's social thought. Barth's aim in the first essay on gospel and law is to establish a positive relationship between gospel and law. He describes this relationship in various ways. He will say, for example, that "Gospel is not Law, just as the Law is not Gospel; but because the Law is in the Gospel, from the Gospel, and points to the Gospel, we must first know the Gospel in order to know about the Law, and not vice-versa."(88) By saying that the Law comes "from the Gospel" Barth means that the gospel is first, there is no law which does not first proceed from God's grace. As the event of grace occurs, it contains within itself a Word of command which "points to the Gospel" as a command to respond to God's grace within one's concrete circumstances. Another way of saying this is to say that gospel and law are the content and form of the Gospel,(89) or that the law points to the gospel in that its command is to respond to grace.(90) In this way gospel and law can be distinguished, but they cannot be separated since they require each other and never exist apart from each other. When the law is separated from the gospel, it becomes an external norm apart from God's grace. Without grace the law becomes a curse, the expression of human willfulness, the rejection of God's justification as given in Jesus Christ. The final result is death.(91) The ideas found in Gospel and Law, were subsequently maintained and clarified in the ethics of the Church Dogmatics, especially Volume II:2, written in 1942. Foundational to the ethics of the Church Dogmatics is the belief that the law is the form of the gospel in that every Word of grace is also a Word of Command to respond concretely to God's grace.
Part of Barth's motive in positively relating Gospel and Law is that Barth wants to avoid the idea that the state is an order prior to or apart from the Gospel. Such a view would hold that God's first work is creation. Then follows sin and the fall which is countered by an order of preservation through the giving of the Law, and then an order of grace with the coming of Jesus Christ.(92) From this perspective the state would not belong to the Christological sphere, but to the order of preservation in that the state maintains the Law by force as a curb on human sin. Barth rejects this view by placing the law, the state, and sin, within the Christological sphere.(93) A forceful essay in this respect can also be found in Barth's exegesis of Romans 5:12-21 entitled Christ and Adam. The basic theme of Barth's exegesis is that in speaking of Adam we are already speaking first of Jesus Christ, and in speaking of Adam's sin, we are already in the Christological sphere in that the grace of God in Jesus Christ is prior to Adam's sin and is its only remedy.(94) Consequently, the law, sin and evil, and the state, have their reality within the Christological sphere. The result of this arrangement, however, is that the state does function to curb sin. Here Barth's view has affinities with the classical Reformation view. He holds, as did the Reformers, that human beings are dangerous and sinful, and the state is a barrier against the outbreak of chaos. But in functioning in this fashion the state is an outpost of the Kingdom, an order of grace, and not the product of sin, or natural law.(95) In this respect Barth differed from the Reformers, in that he positively related church and state, justice and justification as two concentric circles and not as separate realms side by side.(96) Part of Barth's motive in establishing this order was his recognition that apart from a positive relation the church had no norms centered in Jesus Christ by which to counteract the demonic state, and specifically the Third Reich.
Once Barth has established a positive relationship between gospel and law, he then goes on to work out a relationship between state law and Christ's law. He establishes this relationship by means of church law which serves as an intermediary between God's law and state law. An important description of this relationship is found in IV:2 of the Church Dogmatics.(97) There Barth discusses the order of the community in the context of the church's upbuilding. Barth makes the point that there is a positive relationship between church law and the law of the state. The positive relationship exists in that Christ rules both state and church and his rule is expressed through the law of both.(98) In the eschaton both laws will be succeeded by only one law, the law of Christ, the law of the Kingdom of God.(99) In the middle period of Christ's parousia, the church provisionally represents the final law of God which is the goal of state law as well. It does this through its own upbuilding and order as expressed in law. church law arises as the church as a whole listens to Scripture in its effort to hear the living Word of God's grace. This living Word, the risen Christ speaking and acting in the power of the Spirit, contains a Word of Command which is then expressed in the law of the church. Although the state exists under the rule of Christ, the state is ignorant of this rule in the sense that it does not self-consciously pattern itself upon the law of the gospel. It draws its law from other sources, primarily ideological systems inherited through a nations's given history.(100) In this way it differs from the church, and this implies qualitative differences in its law as well. Nevertheless, since Christ works within it, and since its origin and goal coincides with that of the church, it can and does learn from church law. The decisive contribution of church law is that it can serve as a model for state law. "True Church law is exemplary law. For all its particularity, it is a pattern for the formation and administration of human law generally, and therefore of the law of other political, economic, cultural and other human societies."(101) The church can represent this eternal law only in an indirect and broken form. Its law, and this depends upon grace, can be only relatively better than human law. But by grace it does reveal God's law.(102) As the church provisionally represents God's law, it enables the state to grasp elements of this law and thereby enables the state to establish a law which possesses remote connections with the law of Christ. In this way church law acts in a mediating role, as the inner circle between state law and the law of Christ included in God's grace. Barth expresses this by saying that church law is a ius in sacra, while state law exists as an outer circle, a ius circa sacra.(103) As the state assimilates elements of church law, and as Christ works within it to shape its law, it comes to possess remote analogies or similarities to the law of the gospel.(104) By virtue of these similarities state law is not wholly evil; state laws and states are more or less evil depending upon their similarity to the law of the gospel. In this way Barth establishes criteria for evaluating state law, the final criterion being its similarity to the law of the gospel.(105) In short, the state differs from the church in that it law expresses its ideological system as given through its history; yet, given its similarity with the church, it may and does assimilate elements of church law.
In another context, Barth will make the point that the church establishes the state through the preaching of justification.(106) He makes this assertion having first asked the question of whether or not there is any connection between state justice and God's justification.(107) To address this question Barth chooses the point at which Scripture seems most sharply to oppose church and state, Jesus before Pilate. In Barth's view Pilate's responsibility was to mete out justice. It was not his task to discover the truth, but to decide issues on the merits of conformity to law. In the case of Jesus, Pilate publicly stated Jesus' innocence, and then condemned him to death. He did not execute justice. Pilate was not, however, totally removed from God's grace. God overcame Pilate's evil actions and used them to his own glory and the justification of sinful humanity in that justification was achieved through Jesus' being condemned for the sake of all. In this way Pilate belongs to the Christological sphere in that Pilate unwittingly functioned to secure the justification of sinful humanity.(108) Barth uses the New Testament term exousia to describe the state in the context of his discussion of Pilate. The exousia are angelic powers or spiritual forces which manifest their power within the state, its emperor, or its representatives.(109) These angelic powers are not justified. But they are under the lordship of Jesus Christ, and therefore their representatives, Pilate and the unjust state, also serve Christ and thereby serve in humanity's justification. Barth describes the matter as follows:
What follows when all this is applied to the political angelic powers? Clearly this: that power, the state as such, belongs originally and ultimately to Jesus Christ; that in its comparatively independent substance, in its dignity, its function, and its purpose, it should serve the Person and Work of Jesus Christ and therefore the justification of the sinner.(110)
Having related Pilate and Christ, and then the angelic powers and Christ, Barth then extends his analysis to include the church as an inner circle. He points out that the task of the church is to proclaim justification. It is the preaching of justification which founds the true system of law and the true state. Justification is the law of the gospel, the eternal law which prevails in the eschatological and heavenly city.(111) This eternal city is a heavenly state, and its law is not unrelated to the law of earthly states. The heavenly state, of course, will exist by virtue of a radical new act of God, so that neither church nor state can claim any direct identity with this future city. Nevertheless, there is a remote analogy between the heavenly law and both church and state law. "But this relation between the Church and the State does not exclude--but includes-- the fact that the problem of the State, namely, the problem of law, is raised, and must be answered within the sphere of the Church on Earth."(112) As evidence for his position, Barth will point out that the New Testament exhortations to abide by earthly law occur in Christological passages, since the New Testament understands the state as an outpost or annex of the church.(113) Therefore Barth will say that the "light which falls from the heavenly polis upon the earthly ecclesia is reflected in the light which illuminates the earthly polis from the earthly ecclesia."(114)
The Church's Political Action
Since the state exists as the outer circle of Christ's rule, and since the church exists only as it follows that rule, the church reflects that rule in the political realm through political involvement and witness.(115) The most comprehensive treatments of this matter can be found in the 1945 essay "The Christian Community and the Civil Community" in Community, State, Church, and the volume of the Church Dogmatics on Jesus' prophetic witness.(116) In both sections Barth speaks of the state as an analogy of the Kingdom of God. The state is ignorant of the Kingdom, and cannot be directly conformed into its likeness. Nevertheless, the state exists as the outer sphere, and can therefore reflect indirectly or allegorically the Kingdom which is known in the church by faith.
The only possibility that remains--and it suggests itself compellingly--is to regard the existence of the State as an allegory, as a correspondence and an analogue to the Kingdom of God which the Church preaches and believes in. Since the state forms the outer circle, within which the Church, with the mystery of its faith and gospel, is the inner circle, since it shares a common centre with the Church, it is inevitable that, although its presuppositions and its tasks are its own and different, it is nevertheless capable of reflecting indirectly the truth and reality which constitute the Christian community."(117)
Although the state possesses remote analogies to the kingdom, it is decidedly different. Barth describes its history as "human confusion and the rule of the Providence of God."(118) By this Barth means that the state is ignorant of its origin, center, and goal; its history is one of aimlessness, meaninglessness, violent collisions, sin and conflict, a history without hope apart from its eschatological future which it cannot perceive. God acts in this history through the risen Christ. He coordinates this history with the history of Jesus Christ and directs its history to its final goal. The work of God in this outer history can scarcely be perceived in the present era. If at all, it is dimly discerned in the signs of the times which may occasionally reflect the history of the covenant. In the main the rule of sin and confusion runs on, but it is no longer the final word, and its power to harm loses its sting.(119) The church is aware of the history of the covenant. It knowns the origin and goal of the state, and therefore it is able to serve the state by acting politically in the direction of Jesus' prophetic history. It is of the essence of the community to do this. Its life is derived from its relationship to Jesus Christ, and he lives for the world, and therefore the church lives in and for the world as well. The church's life is one only of service, not for itself but for the world, and one element of her service is prophetic witness.(120) The church does this by basing its political decisions and actions on the gospel, by discerning to what degree various political alternatives conform to the gospel, and not on the basis of the prevailing system of natural law.(121) It chooses between political alternatives, and tests these alternatives in light of the Kingdom, and works for those that most nearly reflect the Kingdom. In doing this the church's witness functions as reminders of the kingdom, and in a fragmentary, fleeting, yet significant fashion actually helps to point the state toward its eschatological goal, and thereby enables better states to emerge from among worse ones.
Even its [the church] political activity is therefore a profession of its Christian faith. By its political activity it calls the State from neutrality, ignorance, and paganism into co-responsibility before God, thereby remaining faithful to its own particular mission. It sets in motion the historical process whose aim and content are the moulding of the State into the likeness of the Kingdom of God and hence the fulfillment of the State's own righteous purposes.(122)
There are, however, severe limits to the extent to which the kingdom may be realized in political history, and these will be indicated shortly.
State Officials and Rulers
Just as Barth attributes a positive function to state law as a remote analogy to God's law, he also ascribes a positive function to rulers or state officials as "ministers of God." The following is indicative of his basic position:
It is a separate question that of all human societies the Church has to understand the State, which corresponds and co-ordinates all the others, as a divinely appointed institution, as an element of the lordship of Jesus Christ, as the great human representative of His Lordship over the world outside, so that in this wider sense its officials can be regarded as the 'ministers of God' (Rom. 13:6). It certainly can and must confess in relation to it that it understands its own spiritual centre to be the centre of the being and constitution of the State as well.(123)
As ministers of God, it is the task of state officials to rule justly, to exercise faithfully the terms of its law. The state may not always do this, and just as there is good and bad law, there are good and bad state officials and rulers. Nevertheless, even in the case of tyranny, the arbitrary rule of force and the flouting of justice, God is able to guide human events and prevail against injustice so that his purposes are never overruled. In other words, regardless of the character of state officials, or the quality of state law, God works for good in the outer circle of the state. "There is another truth which the Church might also gather from the meeting of Jesus and Pilate; namely, the very State which is 'demonic' may will evil, and yet, in an outstanding way, may be constrained to do good."(124) Therefore, Barth will say, quoting a number of New Testament passages, the church members ought to submit to, honor, and pray for the state, since the state's authority has its basis in Christ's authority.(125) For this reason Christians are to will and work for the well-being of the state in every sphere of its activity.
Although Barth recognizes that even the worst states are under the rule of Christ and their officials "ministers of God," he does not thereby insist that the nations or their rulers possess absolute authority beyond the scrutiny of the ruled. Like the law, the state as a whole may and must be judged. There are good and bad states and state officials. Depending upon circumstances, the testing of the spirits, resistance to a given state may be necessary. The gospel is the real yet remote norm for state law, and the faithfulness of state officials in forming and administrating this law the norm for a nations' leaders. In certain cases the state is to be resisted or overthrown by force. We will leave elements of that possibility to further paragraphs and focus on how the state is peculiar or distinctive with respect to the church.
Limitations on the State
The state as an outer circle with respect to the church is remotely shaped by the gospel of Christ. There are, however, significant limitations on how state law can be informed by church law, or how the state can function as an outpost of the Kingdom. Barth wants to make a careful distinction at this point. Church law as a ius in sacra directly emerges from the gospel of grace, the event of reconciliation. It calls for the obedience of love to its risen head, the glad acceptance of salvation, and mutual love and service. Its basis is God's justifying and sanctifying work as given in Jesus Christ. State law cannot and should not establish itself upon this foundation, or make claims of ultimacy whether for itself or for other powers. It can adopt elements of church law only in an external, provisional, and relative sense. It cannot and should not demand that its citizens love the state, it cannot proclaim their justification or the forgiveness of sin, and it can make no appeal to truth or to the Word and Spirit.(126) When it begins to make these claims, it is on its way to becoming a false state, a state masquerading in the colors of a church. "When the State begins to claim 'love,' it is in the process of becoming a Church, the Church of a false God, and thus an unjust State."(127) Its task is, in one sense, more modest, yet critically important. Its responsibility "consists in the external, relative, and provisional sanctification of the unhallowed world which is brought about by the existence of political power and order."(128) It may not proclaim justification, but it can and should execute justice by administrating and protecting the law.(129) It does not know the "peace that passes understanding," but it should and can struggle for external peace among peoples. It cannot seek or impose the love of its citizens, but it can work for a relative and external harmony among its members. It is particularly important that the state allow the church the freedom to proclaim justification and to form its own law.(130) By doing this the state allows the church to work for the state's welfare since the church contributes to the state through the prayers of its members, their political action, and their ecclesial law. Given that the state should not claim the love of its citizens, it is limited in the manner in which it can and should enforce its law. Unlike the church, whose relations are shaped by the Spirit in the mutual love of its members, the state should command only external obedience to the law. The means of ordering its manifold relations is the outer coercion of force and not the inner persuasion of love.(131) By means of force it is called to restrain evil, to punish the offender, and to protect its citizens. In this fashion it works to provide a "temporal law and temporal peace, for an external, relative, and provisional humanization of man's existence."(132) In this way the state makes a positive contribution to human life, and to God's rule in human affairs, and therefore Barth believes that the church should give thanks to God
that His Kingdom has an external, relative, and provisional embodiment "in the world that is not yet redeemed," in which it is valid and effective even when the temporal order is based on the most imperfect and clouded knowledge of Jesus Christ or on no such knowledge at all. This external, relative, and provisional, but not on that account invalid or ineffective, form of legal order is the civil community.(133)
Since the state should not and actually cannot base its life upon the gospel, it must perforce turn to other conceptual systems by which to form and order its life. It resorts to various philosophical and speculative systems and various expressions of natural law by which to order its manifold relationships. "And the civil community as such--the civil community which is not yet or is no longer illuminated from its centre--undoubtedly has no other choice but to think, speak, and act on the basis of this allegedly natural law, or rather of a particular conception of the court of appeal which is passed off as the natural law."(134) In saying that states utilize natural law to order themselves, Barth is not denying that many citizens and state officials may be Christian. They may well be, and as such their duty is to govern and act in directions consonant with the kingdom. But their political program and their action as Christians in the political arena cannot be a specifically Christian program, nor should they form Christian parties. To do so is to imply that the Kingdom can be interpreted as a human goal based on natural law.(135) Such a procedure diminishes the effectiveness of the church as it labors to be the political salt within the civil community. The state should resist the church when it attempts such a program.(136) This does not mean, however, that legal and administrative systems and government policies based upon natural law have nothing to do with the gospel. In spite of Barth's refusal to admit elements of natural theology into his evangelical theology, he does claim that results based upon natural law can have similarities to results derived from hearing the Word of grace.(137) This of course is due to the fact that the state, even as it lives by its speculative principles and natural law is still under the lordship of Jesus Christ and never totally removed from his active influence. Upon this basis Barth enjoins Christians to work in the state in favor of those options that reveal the closest similarity to the form of reconciling love as known in Jesus Christ.
Although states may bear some resemblances to the Kingdom, it is not possible to think that states are good. They are not, however, totally evil. They do and may provide for the relative sanctification of the external world. Nevertheless, given their remoteness from their center, their ignorance of their origin and goal, and their consequent reliance upon natural law and speculative systems, they are vulnerable to the upsurge of nothingness and chaos. They are peculiarly tempted to claim an ultimacy for themselves that exceeds their God-given limit of establishing only a relative and external justice and peace. They may and sometimes do claim the love and ultimate allegiance of their citizens. To the degree that the state does this, it becomes the beast from the abyss of Revelation thirteen, one of the exousia active as demonic forces within the political sphere.(138) Barth describes the demonic state as Leviathan, using Hobbes' description of the state as all wise and good.(139) When the state is given this ultimate allegiance, and specifically, when it no longer administers the law to protect justice, but resorts to tyranny and the arbitrary rule of state interests, it becomes one of "The Lordless Powers" seeking to usurp God's position as Lord of all. It develops myths claiming its ultimacy; it proclaims the idea of empire and its inevitable destiny. Having left its appointed bounds, the state will inevitably fall under God's judgment. It will destroy itself and the lives of its citizens. In the case of a demonic state the responsibility of the Christian is to proclaim the gospel, and an aspect of that gospel may well be resistance to the state. Since the state can make no ultimate claim, it cannot claim the ultimate right to its own existence or that of its leaders. Under extreme circumstances, when a state no longer fulfills its intended function, it should be resisted or abolished, and the church should join in those struggles. War, revolution, and assassination may be the only course of effective action.(140) Under these conditions, whether the church has simply refused to give the state its ultimate allegiance, or, more forcefully, engaged in armed resistance, the state may well attack the church. This is to be expected. The state is unaware of the church's basis for existence, and therefore, seeks to bend it to its own purposes. Pressure is exerted, even under the most normal of circumstances.(141) Nevertheless, it is not inevitable that the state become demonic.(142) It may perform its task, sometimes better and sometimes worse. Depending upon circumstances, a testing of the spirits, various responses are appropriate, sometimes relatively peaceful political action, at other times armed struggle. Even in that case, however, when the state totally betrays its calling and becomes the beast of Revelation 13 it is not beyond the power and work of God. Whatever happens, in Barth's view, the state will be compelled to serve God's interests and desires. "We should add that, in the view of the New Testament, in no circumstances can this 'demonic' State finally achieve what it desires; with gnashing of teeth it will have to serve where it wants to dominate; it will have to build where it wishes to destroy; it will have to testify to God's justice where it wishes to display the injustice of men."(143) Upon that basis Barth will insist that political life is serious, that all is never lost, and that what happens in the political sphere, and here we may include the economic behavior of states as well, is relevant to God's purposes as the remote annex or outpost of his Kingdom.
Ideologies and Falsehood
We have characterized the state in terms of its relatedness and its norms. We have seen how it is twice removed from Jesus Christ--like the church it is once removed because of the limitations of this time between the times, and unlike the church, it is further removed in that it is not directly shaped by Word and Spirit, but ruled by the powers and ideologies and ordered through force in accord with law. Nevertheless, Jesus Christ is still its center and the center of the church as well, and he works within both as revealed in the biblical revelation. Since both church and state belong to the middle period and are subject to the power of sin prevalent in this period, both will distort and evade the gospel and its norms for taking responsibility in economic affairs. There is a difference, however, in how both will submit themselves to their sin. The church is ruled by Jesus Christ as revealed in Scripture, and therefore its norm calls it to repentance, although it may and does reject its norm. The state, by contrast, does not proclaim itself as formed by Word and Spirit, and therefore it will proclaim and carry out a full-fledged ideology through which it governs itself. This ideology will enable it to live as it wishes, and, given its sin, it will express the manner in which the state and its citizens avoid being helpful to others in economic affairs. These differences between church and state are not absolute; many Christians will embrace the prevailing economic ideology, and there are and will be states who attempt economic reforms which bear remote analogies to the gospel.
In volume four, book three, of the Church Dogmatics Barth discusses how Jesus is the Truth as he reveals himself in his prophetic office. There Barth describes how this truth is evaded and rendered harmless. Both the world and the church utilize a particular method in avoiding the truth, and Barth describes it as the sin of falsehood. We will briefly describe the sin of falsehood and its characteristic method, and then apply this method to the propositions we have obtained on how God and humanity in Jesus Christ took responsibility for economic affairs. We will negate, evade, or render harmless several of these propositions, and in this way characterizes the sorts of ruling principles nations and peoples will use to justify their sinful economic activity. This will then provide us with a view of what we can expect states and their peoples to do in economic affairs, and by means of this view we will gain access to the sinful aspects of economic life in our times. Since, however, God does work in the state, we cannot expect this view of human sin to be completely definitive; in actual practice states will widely deviate from the gospel while still revealing some remote approximations. In light of the norm and the sinful reality, we will have a view by which to analyze a concrete situation, and that will be the task of the following chapter.
Barth describes how the truth of the covenant is evaded in a number of places within the Church Dogmatics, and, in fact, it forms a part of his polemic against natural theology. His basic thesis is that the Word of God is evaded at the conceptual level by the formation of an ideological system by which persons and nations are able to distance themselves from God and one another.(144) That is, world-views and false ideologies deny the essentially social nature of human existence. "The Word of grace speaks of an activity of God in the world, and in doing so it speaks also of man in his relationship and activity, which also entails in some fashion his relationship to his fellows and himself. A world-view is the glorious possibility of escaping the oppressive atmosphere of this triangle of God, fellowman and oneself, . . . "(145) Secondly, in constructing a world view, falsehood occurs as persons, events, history and life, are integrated into non- historical timeless myths, or recurrent harmonies, in which history and persons as existent in their historical events of encounter disappear.(146) By means of these ideological disguises, persons no longer are viewed as being social and historically together with one another, but rather, governed by orders and patterns beyond their mutual encounter and joint historical action. These disguises enable people and nations to avoid a confrontation with Jesus Christ as known in his history, and specifically, with Jesus Christ in his suffering and passion.(147) In the event of the passion, God's judgment on all human willing and doing was made evident, and Jesus submitted himself to that judgment. By contrast, falsehood arises as a cloak for self-assertion, a means of hiding from God's judgment, and thereby a means of affirming the rightness of any given course of action. It goes without saying that a successful ideological system with respect to economic life will turn the true motives of economic activity as revealed to faith into necessary and important ingredients of its economic theory and practice. In short, ideologies tend to be non-social, non-historical, and they legitimate human drives and assertions as part of the order of things.(148) In light of these considerations, we may briefly characterize the nature of a "successful" economic ideology. We may think of these ideologies in terms of nations, and their guiding economic ideology.
First, nations will separate economic life from the covenant as known by Word and Spirit (2.4), and therefore they will turn to a natural theology or ideology. Secondly, the ideology will be non-social. It will reduce economic life to an harmonic order; it will not see economic transactions as existing in a social context, (2.2) and (2.3). By this means it will evade social responsibility for those with whom it is economically related. Thirdly, economic life will be seen to belong to a non-historical realm, to an invariant natural order (2.3). It will not be seen as the product of history, and therefore capable of being transformed, but rather, as belonging to an immutable order existing beyond human transformation. Further, its origin in human social history will be ignored, and therefore, there will be no way for the participants in an economic order to know or perceive their social historical relations with others in the same order. Hence there can be no repentance among persons, classes, and nations, no co-humanity, and no transformation as joint action. Fourthly, the aim of economic life as satisfying bodily needs, and its analysis from that perspective, will be denied; other needs pertinent to the economic system itself will be seen as the requirements of the economic order, (2.1) and (3.7). Fifthly, the basic sinful motives of economic life will be seen as the right and inevitable form of economic affairs. Specifically, the sins of luxury and accumulation will be seen to be a constituent part of the economic order, (3.4) and (3.5). The order will be founded upon accumulation, and luxury will become a dominant social value. The murder and killing that results from accumulation will not be traced to its economic motives, but rather, projected into the service of a higher and worthy cause (3.4). The sins of exploitation, profiteering, and increased accumulation off of the misery and labor of others will be seen as a necessary good, as perhaps a stage in economic progress, or even as a benefit to weaker and poorer nations and persons. This exploitation will itself belong to the order of things; it will not therefore be a social event, and consequently it will not be proscribed and regulated by law. Rather, the proposal of laws to protect the weak will be seen as tampering with an "effective" economic order. Finally, the analysis of the economic order will perhaps pay lip-service to the existence of the poor in its midst, but their existence will not be seen as reflective of the social, historical, and economic essence of order itself, but rather, the result of causes beyond the scope of economic analysis, or perhaps an unfortunate evil in the process of alleviation, or a minor problem in comparison to other socioeconomic alternatives (3.6). No nation will evidence these ideological characteristics in a pure form, but given their two-fold remoteness to the covenant, we can expect nations to adopt ideologies of this type. We will now end this chapter with a series of propositions which sum up our results. Certain of the following propositions, (4.4), (4.5), (4.7), (4.9), and (4.10), address our fundamental question of how states are called and will take responsibility for economic life.
Final Propositions from Chapter Four
4.1 God is historical and communal within himself, (1.7 and 1.8), and outside himself he creates communities which exist historically. Responsibility for economic life is first a communal responsibility, and secondly, in that context an individual responsibility as persons work together as one to renew economic existence. As people work together, the peculiarities and differences of peoples are respected, fitted together, and strengthened through mutual action and service.
4.2 Corresponding to election (1.5), there is one great community, one in election, creation, and redemption, but divided in the period between creation and redemption. This proposition has its partial basis in the unity of God (1.1) and the fact of human sin which breaks community (2.7)
4.3 The two primary communities that exist in the middle period are Israel and the church, and the state. They exist historically as two concentric circles with Jesus Christ as the center, and Israel and the state as the inner circle. This analogy reflects both similarities and differences between church and state. Since Jesus Christ is the center for both church and state, he is the life and norm for both. This proposition has its partial basis in (4.2).
4.4 There is an order in God's revelation and action. His revelation is Jesus Christ, and then he creates reflections of his action in Israel and the church, and more remotely he acts in the state, which in turn reflects the communal forms of his action as found in Israel and the church. Therefore, given (4.1), both church and state as social wholes are called to take responsibility for economic life through historical action. From this it follows, (2.5), that a primary social task for the state is to set the conditions for a vital economic existence.
4.5 The state may work to create a vital economic life only by restoring its social relations within itself and with its neighbors (2.3). This implies a direction of service, from the strong to the weak, from rich to poor, (3.4) and (3.5).
4.6 The church's mission is beyond itself; it serves the world as the provisional representation of the whole of humanity. It serves the state through its prayers, the preaching of justification, its law, and its political action and prophetic witness. This proposition has its partial basis in the fact that the inner-triune love, (1.1) and (1.3), is reflected (1.4) in love and service.
4.7 The church can be characterized as being formed and existing by Word and Spirit. In distinction, but with a remote analogy, states exist by force undergirded by law. They are called to act responsibly in economic affairs through law backed up by force. This law has its basis in ideologies and natural law, but it may remotely reflect the law of the gospel. Therefore, state law needs to reflect, albeit remotely, a direction of service, from strong to weak in behalf of the powerless and poor. This proposition has its partial basis in the fact that community in God, the modes, are distinguished by the relations, the issues of Word and Spirit (1.1), and that this holds, (1.4) ad extra. Also (4.4).
4.8 Both church and state belong to the middle term of Christ's parousia. The Kingdom exists in this period in a fleeting but real fashion as given in Jesus' history. This is known and proclaimed in the church, in so far as the Kingdom exists in the church. Both church and state exist under the limitation of the middle period. This proposition has its partial basis in (4.2) and (4.3).
4.9 The church exists as God brings people together through the gospel, in mutual love and service, in obedience and thanksgiving to God's grace. The state should not make these ultimate claims; its aim is to provide a relative and provisional humanization of life as ordered by law and force. It may learn from the church, from its law and witness, but it cannot become a church. When it does, it becomes the beast from the abyss, a false church and therefore a false state. In certain cases it is to be resisted, and even overthrown. Further, since human life requires an adequate economic base (2.5), a state that fails to provide that base through force based upon law, or even economically oppresses its citizens or other states, cannot provide for the relative and provisional humanization of life. In that case it may be resisted or overthrown. This proposition has its partial basis in (4.2) and (4.3).
4.10 Given their remoteness from the center, states are enslaved by the exousia, and their national histories are dominated by sin, confusion, and chaos. In the economic sphere this means they are dominated by Mammon, the drive for accumulation, luxury, exploitation, and lawlessness. By these actions the community nature of economic responsibility is destroyed and nations, classes, and persons break covenant with one another. These sinful actions are disguised by ideologies which conceal the essential social and historical character of economic life. Nevertheless, these national histories are not beyond the reach of grace, and God orders and constrains them in the direction of the Son. Therefore, political action and the search for economic justice is a vital and necessary enterprise, both for the church within the state and for the state itself. This proposition has its partial basis in (4.2) and (4.3).
4.11 The social history of the covenant is the origin, basis, and goal of world history. It is the center, or key, by which to understand world history. Any analysis of general affairs may adopt a non-theological conceptual system to understand that history, but its results and concepts must be integrated and coordinated with the central covenant history in ways that preserve the priority of the covenant history.
Endnotes to Chapter Four
1. This is an important feature of Barth's doctrine of the state, and we shall verify it as we proceed. It will imply that the norms for what we have called the social or political aspect of economic life are based in the covenant and not in nature or natural law.
2. Barth, Church Dogmatics, II:2, pp. 3, 15-6.
3. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:4, pp. 305-9. 4. Ibid., p. 303.
5. Ibid., excursus, pp. 309-23. 6. Ibid., p. 318.
7. Ibid., p. 323.
8. Karl Barth, Community, State, and Church, with an introduction by Will Herberg, trans. A. Hall, G. Howe, and Stanley Godman (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, 1960.) A number of other sources are also significant for Barth's political thought, the most salient being Barth's Against the Stream, Knowledge and Service, and The Church and the Political Problem of our Day. The Knowledge of God and the Service of God According to the Teachings of the Reformation, trans. J. L. Haire and Ian Henderson (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938.) Hereinafter referred to as Knowledge and Service. The Church and the Political Problem of our Day (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1939.)
9. See Barth's introductory remarks to Church Dogmatics, III:3, particularly section 2, pp. 14-33, and the three points, pp. 15, 18, and 26. See also summary statement at head of chapter X1, p. 3.
10. Ibid., p. 36. Also, pp. 24, 47. See part 3, pp. 154-238, the comments pp. 183-226 passim, and pp. 515-6.
11. Ibid., pp. 31, 210, 515-6 on Church; p. 183 for Israel.
12. Ibid., pp. 197-99.
13. Ibid., p. 20. Also see the discussion, pp. 20-26.
14. Ibid., p. 22.
15. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:3, first half, pp. 7-8.
16. Ibid., p. xi. 17. Ibid., the table of contents, p. xv.
18. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:1, point 2 of Barth's excursus, pp. 28-32.
19. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:3, first half, pp. 3-38.
20. Ibid., p. 38. 21. Ibid., the four points pp. 49-52.
22. Ibid., p. 66. 23. Ibid., pp. 53-65. 24. Ibid., p. 65.
25. Ibid., p. 67. 26. Ibid., p. 56.
27. Ibid., p. 56. Note also the excursus, pp. 56-60.
28. Ibid., p. 64. 29. Ibid., excursus, pp. 292-3.
30. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:1, section 3, "The Verdict of the Father," pp. 283-357; IV:2, section 4, "The Direction of the Son," pp. 264-377; and IV:3, first half, section 4, "The Promise of the Spirit," pp. 274-367. With respect to Jesus' confronting the lives of all people in all times, see the initial discussion on pp. 283-299 of IV:1 in which Barth poses the question of how Christ can be contemporaneous with us, and p. 299, where he introduces the resurrection as the event which makes this possible, and note comments on pp. 313-6; the same question is posed in IV:2, pp. 264-5, and the resurrection is given as the answer, pp. 265-6, and note comments pp. 307, 318; and finally, for similar results in IV:3, first half, see pp. 276, where the issue is raised, and p. 281, where resurrection is given as the definitive event, note also comments 296-300.
31. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:3, first half, p. 293. See also the discussion p. 320 of IV:1 and subsequent excursus; finally, see pp. 319-336 of IV:2, on the Spirit's work in the second parousia as having its basis in Jesus' prior history, and note p. 336 where Barth links Jesus' parousia with the whole of his earthly history.
32. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:1, pp. 318-323, and especially the comments on pp. 322-3; IV:2, pp. 319-377 passim; IV:3, first half, pp. 350-367. In this section of IV:3, first half, pp. 274-367, Barth first discusses the resurrection as God's action in the world through Jesus Christ. He recognizes a limit on Jesus' effective presence in the middle period of the parousia, pp. 316-350, and then in the final section, 350-367, characterizes our middle period as the time of the Spirit.
33. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:3, 1, p. 224. See also, IV:3, first half, point 2, pp. 357-8.
34. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:1, pp. 318-332; IV:3, first half, pp. 316-350. Hunsinger concludes that Barth's radical eschatology and his view of the limitation of the present age leads Barth to the opinion that "political praxis can always be only a witness, never a realization . . . His [Barth's] radical eschatology lead logically to pragmatist political ethics." (Radical Politics, pp. 186-7.) It is not clear that Barth's mature theology leads to a "pragmatic" political ethic. The word "pragmatic" has connotations of "adjustments" among conflicting interests. We shall draw some ethical conclusions from a Barthian perspective in the final chapter. These conclusions are not "pragmatic," they sacrifice the interests of the powerful for those of the weak and dispossessed.
35. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:1, p. 323. Although Segundo's evolutionary view holds the promise of an ever ascending march within history, he, like Barth, does not proclaim the achievement of utopia within history itself, although the future goal depends in part upon developments within history. Evolution and Guilt, pp. 99-101; The Hidden Motives of Pastoral Action: Latin American Reflections (Maryknoll. N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1978), p. 1.
36. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:1, pp. 325-6, and excursus p. 329; also comments, IV:3, first half, pp. 327-8.
37. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:1, pp. 326-8, 736-9; IV:3, first half, pp. 359-362;
38. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:1, pp. 322-239, and the excursus pp. 329-332; IV:3, first half, pp. 292-296, 314-6, 350-53, 356-62; IV:3, second half, pp. 902-928.
39. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:1, pp. 324-332.
40. See the indexes of each volume of the Church Dogmatics.
41. Barth reaches similar conclusions in Church Dogmatics, I:2, pp. 203-223. Note discussion beginning p. 209, and the three points on the church's dependence upon the Word, pp. 214, 216, 217, and then pp. 221-3 where this dependence is effected by the work of the Spirit. Note also p. 211 and excursus pp. 211-3, and point 3, pp. 217-9, where Barth says the object of God's revelation is first the community, Israel and the church, and in that context the individual. See the succinct discussion on "The Real Church" in Against the Stream, pp. 62-77. There Barth summarizes his view of the church in a series of seven propositions, and propositions one, three, four, five, and six, indicate the church's reality as formed by Word and Spirit.
42. See Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:1, pp. 149-154, where Barth introduces his three Christological sections. There he speaks of the primacy of the community, and in that context, the individual. Also, IV:2, pp. 614-5; IV:3, second half, pp. 681-4.
43. We will investigate these statements in the next section.
44. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:2, p. 655, 669; IV:3, second half, pp. 754-5.
45. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:2, pp. 622-3.
46. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:1, pp. 661-668. 47. Ibid., p. 663.
48. Ibid., p. 669-70. 49. Ibid., p. 662. 50. Ibid., pp. 663-4.
51. Ibid., p. 665. 52. Ibid., p. 668. 53. Ibid., pp. 669-71.
54. Ibid., p. 677.
55. Ibid., for holiness as deriving from church's relatedness to God see comments, pp. 685, 703; for catholicity pp. 710-12; for apostolicity, see pp. 715, 719. Note, p. 721, that Barth holds that the witness of the apostles in unity with that of Israel is the means through which God addresses the church.
56. Ibid., p. 685. 57. Ibid., p. 688.
58. Ibid., p. 706, see excursus pp. 706-7.
59. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:2, pp. 614-726.
60. Ibid., the section entitled "The True Church," pp. 614-41.
61. Ibid., p. 617. 62. Ibid., p. 617. 63. Ibid., pp. 614-5.
64. Ibid., the image of construction is the dominant image of Barth's section on "The True Church," pp. 614-41, while growth is the image used in the section "The Growth of the Community," pp. 641-660.
65. Ibid., p. 627. Note that Barth discusses the growth of the community only in the prior context of its being the communion of saints, that is, the entire church grows. See discussion beginning p. 641.
66. Ibid., p. 636. 67. Ibid. 68. Ibid., pp. 636-7.
69. Ibid., p. 641. 70. Ibid., p. 643. 71. Ibid., p. 650.
72. Ibid., p. 635, and excursus pp. 636-8.
73. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:1, p. 643, IV:2, p. 614, IV:3, second half, p. 681.
74. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:2, p. 621. See also proposition two, pp. 64-66 in the section on "The Real Church" in Against the Stream where Barth speaks of the church being known only in faith. "The belief in and therefore the seeing of the real Church is not everyone's affair, for this believing and seeing are inevitably dependent on the revelation of God and the witness of the Holy Spirit." (p. 65.)
75. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:2, pp. 622-3.
76. Ibid., Barth's excursus 623-6. There is a difference between Barth and Segundo at this point. Barth will not denigrate the importance of the middle period of Christ's parousia, it serves God's purposes and provides the time for God and humanity's further work. (Church Dogmatics, IV:1, pp. 326-8, 736-9; IV:3, first half, pp. 359-62.) In comparison to Segundo, however, he has a much weaker emphasis on the fullness of Christ's being as a cumulative factor in history. For Segundo, the "mission of history is to realize and fulfill the total presence of Christ, to build up his body. Christ is the ultimate reality. But, as the New Testament suggests, Christ forms a unique and progressive reality with his body and his work." (Our Idea of God, p. 33. See especially the discussion, Grace and the Human Condition, pp. 122-7.) Imperial Europe was the center of Barth's world, and he watched its collapse and relegation to a second rate power. Segundo lives on the margin of the capitalist empire; his context is suffering and oppression. He does not seek to defend civilization against the forces of chaos, but to construct a new social order. (Our Idea of God, pp. 34-7.)
77. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:2, p. 625.
78. Ibid., pp. 621-2. From another angle, Barth will say that Jesus Christ does not exist apart from his body the church, p. 659.
79. Ibid., the excursus p. 623-626, and comments p. 621.
80. Ibid., p. 686.
81. Barth, Community, State, and Church, p. 124.
82. Ibid. Also Barth's Against the Stream, p. 95.
83. Barth, Community, State, and Church, pp. 122-5.
84. Ibid., pp. 126-7.
85. This is an important point, and evidence for this point will be given as we proceed. For now, we may note that Barth begins his discussion entitled "The Christian Community in the Midst of Political Change" with the following statement: "The Christian Church commemorates the great change in earthly and heavenly history, which has already taken place in the death of Jesus Christ in judgment on human sin and for the justification of sinful man, which has already been proclaimed in his resurrection from the dead and will be revealed in his second coming, as the goal of all the temporal ways of God" (Against the Stream, p. 77.) Barth places the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ at the center of all history, and the church is to understand that this dynamic is the form of God's action in the political process, and the norm of its actions as it follows God's grace in political affairs. "The alternation and the changes of political systems stand in the light of this great change which is called Jesus Christ. This is the standpoint from which we must view political change to see it clearly." (p. 79.)
86. George Hunsinger presents, in a series of propositions, an excellent summary of how Barth relates church and state. (George Hunsinger, "Karl Barth and Radical Politics: Some further Considerations." pp. 184-7.)
87. There is considerable disparity between Barth and Segundo on the essence of the church and its relation to the political order and we may describe it at this point. The difference lies in their differing views of history. In Segundo's view, the church is the leading edge of the evolutionary advance. It is a new threshold point, a new phylum within the social order. It represents the "reflective portion of the world as it becomes christianized: the Church is the principle focus of inter-human affinities for love; the Church is the central axis of universal convergence and the precise emerging point of the encounter between the Universe and the Omega Point." (De la sociedad a la teologia, p. 157. See all of the discussion, pp. 157-173.) As the leading role of the evolutionary advance, the church is the community of those who are aware of the destiny and origin of all peoples, therefore, the church has a crucial role to play in history. (The Community Called Church, pp, 7-11, 19-23, 29-30, 52, 60, 97, 102, 120-24.) The church serves the cosmos by providing the higher syntheses of self-sacrificial love that fuel the evolutionary advance. (The Community Called Church, pp. 81-86, 89-90, 102-3, especially pp. 120-24; The Sacraments Today, p. 7, note pp. 53-55 where the efficacy of the sacraments is connected with the church's role of historical liberation; De la sociedad a la teologia, pp. 169-73; The Liberation of Theology, pp. 228-231. Segundo is aware, of course, that the church rarely lives up to its role. The Liberation of Theology, pp. 211-216). From this perspective, the church may be contrasted with the political order. The political order is not the church. It exists on a lower evolutionary level where entropy dominates to a greater degree. As a result, the political sphere tends to adopt simplistic solutions that go in the direction of the least resistance. Therefore, successful political programs require mass-actions, simplistic slogans, and a certain degree of coercion. (Segundo's Masas and Minorias gives one of his clearest discussions of this relationship. Note his discussion of Lenin's concept of the masses as characterized by the tendency to drift toward simple and facile solutions, the relation of Lenin's ideas to entropy, and his definition of masses. Masas y minorias en la dialectica divina de la liberacion, [Buenos Aires: La aurora, 1973], pp. 21-22, 25-26, 28-30. Also The Liberation of Theology, pp. 216-221, and 221-228 where the matter is placed in a scientific context.) The church must be aware of the mass-characteristics of social life. It spearheads the evolutionary advance in a dialectical fashion by providing the higher levels of love and complexity in relation to the simplicities of the political base. Therefore, real social transformation must take account of two poles, an impending level of new complexity, and the need to stay within the limits of available energy which implies the use of mass-actions and simplistic solutions structuring the social mass in a determined fashion. If either pole is neglected, the evolutionary advance is threatened by conservatism on one side as the appeal to an already fixed routine, or irrelevant idealisms whose complexity is detached from its mass-action base. (Evolution and Guilt, pp. 129-31. See his discussion of "third way" attempts in Masas y minorias en la dialectica divina de la liberacion, pp. 85-90 and The Liberation of Theology, pp. 90-95.) Several comments are in order. First, the dynamics of entropy/complexity, mass/minorities, and church/state, function as a partial norm in Segundo's political ethic. Political calculations must take the fact of entropy into account, as well as the fact that new syntheses can occur at crucial moments. From a Barthian perspective, the Word is not determined by considerations of this sort. The critical factor is the event of discernment in which the state's practices are measured by the Word in light of the one norm Jesus Christ. In that event the Word leads the way forward, and is able to establish its own efficacy. In relation to Segundo, this has both radical and conservative possibilities. The Word is radical; it does not depend upon a mass base, but purely upon grace. At the same time, God's Word may be conservative, and new syntheses may not be offered when the evolutionary advance has reached a specific point. From Segundo's point of view, Barth's theology runs the risk of idealism and political irrelevance, if not actually being obstructive of real advance. He would say that Barth fails to consider fully the mass-mechanisms of political life. Barth would counter by saying that God's judgment brings the old order to an end. The new order is not dialectically related the old, crucifixion and resurrection provide the only true transformation in history. By grace, hints of this radical transformation can be seen in the outer sphere of the nations, and if the church does not follow its Lord in this matter it will fail to struggle for the only possible revolution that really transforms human life. In the final chapter we shall offer some suggestions with respect to economic life. These suggestions have their basis in Barth's theology in relation to an empirical analysis. They are not, however, determined by "political realism." Their basis is hope in God's act. Secondly, Segundo links the evolutionary advance quite closely to the role of the church. The church is a new order, a new phylum, the illumination of mysteries that occur at lower levels. Barth makes a distinction between church and state, but it not as pronounced a qualitative distinction. The church is the community who know the destiny of all and that is a qualitative difference. Yet, Jesus Christ works in the state, just as he works in the church. Both church and state reflect their center. Furthermore, at any given moment, God may work in the state in ways that judge the church, that reveal its failure to hear his voice, and this should drive the church back to its source in Scripture. (Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:3, first half, pp. 110-136.) In other words, the norms for economic life and the Kingdom are found in Jesus Christ. They are not dialectically related to history, nor may they appear initially in the church as the leading edge of evolutionary advance.
88. Barth, Community, State, and Church, p. 72.
89. Ibid., p. 84. 90. Ibid., p. 81. 91. Ibid., pp. 86-94.
92. Ibid., Herberg's discussion pp. 25-29.
93. Ibid., pp. 83, 104, 114, 120-122, 154-164; Barth, Knowledge and Service, pp. 220-1; Against the Stream, pp. 94-95; How I Changed My Mind, Introduction and Epilogue by John D. Godsey (Richmond, Virginia: John Knox Press, 1966), p. 48; A Letter to Great Britain from Switzerland (London: The Sheldon Press, 1941), pp. 11-12. The work by Arthur Cochrane, The Church's Confession Under Hitler, is excellent in this regard. He provides a theological and historical assessment of the resistance of the Confessing Church, including the church's confession of faith in Barmen and other documents. The German Christians allowed history and nature to become a source of revelation for the state. To counter this development, Barmen brought both the law and the state into the Christological sphere, and this entailed a departure from both Lutheran and Reformed positions. Barth was a central figure in developing Barmen's theological statements. (For Gospel and Law, see article two of Barmen, pp. 239-40, and Cochrane's discussion, pp. 190-1; for church and state, articles three and five of Barmen, pp. 240-41, and Cochrane's discussion pp. 190-92.) See also proposition (2.7).
94. Karl Barth, Christ and Adam, trans. T. A. Smail (New York: Collier Books, 1962), pp. 15-16, 35-41, 45-51, especially comments pp. 59-75, where Barth argues that humanity can be known in Adam as sinful only because humanity can first be seen in the resurrected Christ. Note also final comments pp. 107-17 on priority of Jesus' humanity.
95. Barth, Community, State, and Church, pp. 154-6.
96. Ibid., pp. 101-104. See also, pp. 133-4, 155-7, 169, 186-7, for particularly clear statements on the church's being the inner circle with respect to the state with Jesus Christ at the center.
97. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:2, pp. 686-726.
98. Ibid., pp. 724-5. See also Barth, Community, State, and Church, p. 154.
99. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:2, p. 720.
100. Ibid., pp. 721-22. Barth, Community, State, and Church, pp. 164, 167, 170, 180-1.
101. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:2, p. 719.
102. Ibid., pp. 719-23, and excursus, pp. 723-4, on how church law may serve as a model.
103. Ibid., p. 720. 104. Ibid., pp. 724-5.
105. Barth, Community, State, and Church, p. 181.
106. Ibid., the essay "Church and State", pp. 101-148.
107. Ibid., p. 101. 108. Ibid., pp. 110-2. 109. Ibid., pp. 114-6.
110. Ibid., p. 118. Also, p. 131. Barth, A Letter to Great Britain from Switzerland, pp. 10-11.
111. Barth, Community, State, and Church, pp. 126-127.
112. Ibid., p. 132. 113. Ibid., pp. 132-4. 114. Ibid., p. 135.
115. The question of whether or not the church plays a revolutionary role in the social order is really the question as to the activity of God's Kingdom in social life. This follows from the fact that the church exists only in relation to Jesus Christ and his Kingdom. Given that the Kingdom is revolutionary the church is revolutionary. Given that God's Kingdom does not ipso facto coincide with any social movement, God's revolution may not appear revolutionary in a given situation. In certain contexts the church may need to temper its words and actions, in others cases, the church may be called to revolutionary action. In any event, the church's revolutionary action follows from the revolution of God and his Kingdom, and Gollwitzer rightly recognizes that fact. "He [Barth] became more soberly pragmatic than he once was about politics, but he never abandoned the radical and revolutionary orientation for work in society that the had received from the message of the kingdom of God." (Hunsinger, Radical Politics, p. 89.) On the other hand, Barth describes the manifestation of God's Kingdom in the present moment as being similar to the time of Jesus in the tomb. (Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:1, p. 323.) Because of this limitation, the real church will "always and everywhere be visible to only a few frightened and very joyful 'Christians' and to these only by the free grace of God." Barth will also say that the "real Church is the lowliest, the poorest, meanest, weakest thing that can possibly exist under God's heaven, gathered as it is around a manger and a Cross." (Barth, Against the Stream, pp. 64-65.) Barth believes that the revolution of God creates political change. But any revolution in the outer sphere of the nations can only manifest the revolution of God in the most fleeting form, and then only in its "poorest, meanest, and weakest" elements, and these hidden from the might and wisdom of the world. The so-called "revolution," may not be the real revolution at all.
116. Barth, Community, State, and Church, pp. 149-189; IV:3 second half, the sections entitled "The Christian in Affliction" pp. 614-647, and "The Holy Spirit and the Sending of the Christian Community" pp. 681-901. Note also introductory section of IV:3 first half, pp. 3-38, and the excursus where Barth puts the matter in historical perspective. See also III:4, point 4, pp. 509-515. Two sections of Barth's Against the Stream give very clear statements on how Barth views the church's political action, "The Christian Community in the Midst of Political Change," pp. 77-93, and "Political Decisions in the Unity of Faith," pp. 149-64. The order of Barth's thinking can also be seen in his The Church and the Political Problem of Our Day. First, he understands the church as existing only in relationship to Jesus Christ, and then, on the basis of that relation, it is called to follow his action which consists of service in the political realm. (pp. 5-8, 8-11.) "Her sovereignty consists in her simply having to repeat--to repeat in human weakness what Jesus Christ in divine power was, is and will be. That is the Church's service." The repetition of Christ's work in the world is not the general affirmation of a given social program, but rather, "definite decisions in relation to those contemporary questions which agitate the Church and the world." (p. 9. See also, p. 12.)
117. Barth, Community, State, and Church, p. 169; IV:3 second half, pp. 686-7, excursus 688-693, 693-721 passim, and especially comments p. 712. On the basis of a doctrine of analogy Barth concludes his Community, State, Church, with a series of propositions in which he argues analogously from the covenant to forms of political life. In my view, the procedure used by Barth at this point is not characteristic of his theology as a whole. The Word is concrete and specific, it does not lend itself to abstract considerations or a use of analogies apart from concrete circumstances. Dannemann makes a similar point when he notes that Barth's use of analogies at this point is non-historical. (Dannemann, Theologie und Politik, p. 142). The Word creates analogies, but one does not proceed from analogies to the Word. We are going to suggest ways of to renew economic life in one aspect of our concrete circumstances. We are not going to proceed analogously, but rather, listen attentively to Barth's theology in a specific context.
118. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:3 part 2, pp. 693-703. In this section Barth does not specifically speak of the state, but this is implicit throughout his treatment. This section deals with the prophetic witness of the church, and that in relation to the state. Barth considers his discussion of the history of the nations as presented here in IV:3, second half, to have been developed in greater detail in III:3 under the doctrine of providence. (See comments IV:3, second half, p. 688.) There is, in one sense, an ambiguity here. Barth appropriates providence and the history beyond the covenant to God the Father, corresponding to God's inscrutability in creation and in history outside the covenant. For this reason a discussion of the state would logically come in III:3 since Barth vigorously rejected the idea that the state is a source of revelation. Nevertheless, he locates his doctrine of the state in the Christological sphere, and hence the discussion in IV:3, second half.
119. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:3, second half, pp. 703-16, and excursus, pp. 714-5, on the signs of the times.
120. Ibid., pp. 721-762, where Barth speaks of the church's being created by its relation to Jesus Christ, and therefore her prophetic witness occurs in following him. The theme of service through prophetic witness and action is found throughout Barth's treatment on the people of God in world occurrence. It is readily apparent in the section "The Community for the World," pp. 762-795. It is also a major theme of Barth's Community, State, and Church, and in particular, note part four, "The Service which the Church Owes the State" pp. 135-148, as well as comments, pp. 157-171, and following; See also Barth's Knowledge and Service, pp. 229-31.
121. This is Barth's main theme in the section "The Task of the Community" pp. 795-830 of IV:3, second half. See also, Barth, Community, State, and Church pp. 147, 162-5, 170-1, and 172-78, where Barth gives examples of how Christian truths can be transported into political perspectives and efforts, and further comments pp. 179-81.
122. Barth, Community, State, and Church, p. 171.
123. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:2, p. 687; Community, State, and Church, pp. 113, 134; Knowledge and Service, p. 223.
124. Barth, Community, State, and Church, p. 111.
125. Ibid., pp. 111, 121-22, 130-131, 134.
126. Ibid., pp. 110, 132, 151. 127. Ibid., p. 143.
128. Ibid., p. 157; Knowledge and Service, pp. 221-5.
129. Barth, Community, State, and Church, pp. 119, 177.
130. Ibid., pp. 129, 137, 147, 155; Knowledge and Service, p. 226.
131. Barth, Community, State, and Church, pp. 132, 151, 154, 177, 189. Barth normally speaks of the State in terms of "a system of law based on power, a system of power in honour of law." (Barth, Against the Stream, p. 80. See similar comments by Barth in A Letter to Great Britain from Switzerland, pp. 12-14, and The Christian Life, pp. 219-220.) Barth does recognize, however, that the state is not completely defined by the concepts of law and force, but it involves the consent and support of its members as well. "The order set up is guaranteed by force--it is part of the nature of the State, that it depends in the final resort on the availability of force. But this must not be isolated from the other point, that the State must be supported by the free responsibility of its members. The State cannot be drawn down over men's heads like a hood." (Against the Stream p. 95). In The Church and the Political Problem of Our Day, he gives his view of the state in terms of force and law, and concludes that National Socialism has failed in this regard. Therefore, it should be abolished. (pp. 52, 59.) In the final chapter we shall argue that an aspect of the present economic order is lawless, and therefore it must be radically transformed.
132. Barth, Community, State, and Church, p. 161. See especially point 2, pp. 80-82 of Against the Stream where Barth speaks of the limited yet critically important work of the state. Segundo defines the role of the state as that of ordering the various elements of the social whole. "The political function is the final judging function of the total society for the common good, operating above the goods and interests of its different sectors." (De la sociedad a la teologia, p. 112.) The state directs and unifies diverse elements into higher syntheses, and given the impending unity of the world society, individual states are related to and affected by the global socioeconomic system. Latin America, for example, represents a lower level of evolutionary advance, an area of routine and simplicity which provides the base for the advanced world as a higher level synthesis. The prosperity, advanced culture, and political equilibrium of the United States is made possible by its use of the cheap labor and raw materials of Latin American countries. "The displacement of technology (and of technicians) to the metropolis, the unreality of any culture and autonomous creativity, that is, of development of each sector of the Latin American society is not something fortuitous, it is the same basis by which the Latin American countries contribute to the level of life, of culture, and even to the internal political equilibrium of the United States." (p. 118. Also see the discussion, pp. 116-8.) Given Segundo's evolutionary perspective, and the necessity of lower orders as the basis for higher complexities, one could conclude that the impoverished condition of Latin America is necessary for world advancement, and that this necessity may well endure for the foreseeable future. We shall, following Barth, analyze relations between the United States and Latin America in terms of covenant history, and not in evolutionary terms.
133. Barth, Community, State, and Church, p. 154.
134. Ibid., p. 164. By saying that the law is "allegedly natural" Barth is referring to the fact that in his viewpoint there is no "natural" law that determines the course of the cosmos, but rather God's grace as revealed in Jesus Christ.
135. Barth makes a sharp distinction between the revelation of God's Kingdom in Jesus Christ and any given political system or program. The church is called to act specifically with respect to concrete circumstances, and this may well involve a commitment to a given political movement or program. But this is not the adoption of a program as a general truth of the gospel, but rather, obedience to the Word for a given circumstance and only for that circumstance. We observed this in Barth's understanding of Jesus' passive conservatism, and Barth's view that the church should not offer a program for the world's improvement or support various "isms." (Church Dogmatics, I:2, 427-8, III:4, pp. 263, 506-7; IV:2, pp. 171-9; IV:3, first half, p. 246; IV:3, second half, p. 837.) In other contexts, Barth will say that the "Christian Church is independent in relation to political change" and that it "can see in no ancient or modern political system more than an imperfect, threatened and restricted human effort, the furthering or opposing of which should never be confused with its own proper mission." (Against the Stream, p. 85. See especially point four, pp. 85-87, also, 91-2, 99-100, 114.) Or again, "We have a unique revolutionary hope to proclaim to the world, but we have no system of economic or political principles to offer, which would presume to present, in itself, the content of this hope. There is no system, there are only Christian decisions as demonstrations and signs of this hope. For God Himself and He alone is this hope." (Karl Barth, "World's Disorder and God's Design." Congregational Quarterly XXVII [January, 1949, pp. 11-17], pp. 16-17. See, also Karl Barth, How to Serve God in a Marxist Land, trans. Henry Clark and James D. Smart [New York: Association press, 1959], pp. 59-60, as well as Barth's, The Church and the War, p. 32, and The Christian Life, pp. 239-40.) Therefore, we cannot agree with those who assert that Barth's theology affirms socialism, whether theoretically or practically, though we readily discern socialist themes in Barth's theology. The question for Barth is always the concrete meaning of the Word in specific circumstances, and for that reason our study shall include an historical analysis in the final chapter.
Segundo, like Barth, affirms the necessity of political commitments, and he also rejects the idea of forming Christian parties buttressed by a "Christian" ideology. The function of ideologies, in Segundo's view, is to simplify existence and establish routine in the political sphere. These mass characteristics of ideology are at odds with the church's role of self-sacrificial love, seeking greater depth and complexity. If the church were to participate in a "Christian" party, it would be forced to adopt mass-actions and a simplistic ideology in order to exercise political power. This would contradict its role as the spearhead of the evolutionary advance, and it would lose its capacity to be the vanguard of the political process. (The Community Called Church, pp. 46-48, see his discussion of the Grand Inquisitor, pp. 87-88, his comments on the church's being an aristocracy of service, pp. 89-90, his comments on ideologies, church, and political parties, pp. 126-8; Grace and the Human Condition, p. 53; the section, pp. 127-33 of Our Idea of God is important in this regard; also Masas y minorias en la dialectica divina de la liberacion, pp. 31-52, and the four conclusions, pp. 49-52. See his discussion in The Hidden Motives of Pastoral Action: Latin American Reflections, pp. 26-32, where, after analyzing the instability of Latin American social life, he points out that the church is playing the role of a shaman, relating people to the "higher powers", apart from history, and pp. 32-37, 58-9, where he advocates the church's being a heroic minority.)
136. Barth, Community, State, and Church, p. 182-4. IV:3, second half, pp. 837-8.
137. Barth, Community, State, and Church, p. 181.
138. Ibid., the discussion pp. 114-119; Knowledge and Service, p. 226; Against the Stream, pp. 96-97.
139. Barth, The Christian Life, the excursus, pp. 220-2.
140. Barth, Community, State, and Church, 137-9, p. 144-145; Knowledge and Service, pp. 229-32; Against the Stream, p. 99; Church Dogmatics, III:4, pp. 448-50; The history of Barth's resistance to Hitler can be found in chapters five and six of Busch. (Note comments pp. 274, 289, 298, 303, 318, where Barth advocated resistance to Hitler including the use of force.) See also Barth's comments in How I Changed My Mind, pp. 44-49, where Barth indicates that his resistance to Hitler was the "application" of his theological ideas, and that this work represented no change in his basic theological and political outlook (pp. 44, 48). Also, Barth, A Letter to Great Britain from Switzerland, pp. 4-9, and The Church and the Political Problem of Our Day, pp. 59-66. Barth's The German Church Conflict gives a real sense of the struggle of Barth and the Confessing Church to stand firm.
141. Barth, Community, State, and Church, p. 137-9, 144-45. See especially "The Christian in Affliction," Church Dogmatics, IV:3, second half, pp. 614-647; IV:2, pp. 544-46, and section entitled "The Upholding of the Community" pp. 660-76. Theological Existence Today was written by Barth to encourage the Evangelical Church to resist Hitler's subversive efforts. (Karl Barth, Theological Existence Today, trans. Birch Hoyle [London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1933.] See the principles laid down by Barth, pp. 51-53.) See also the article Die christliche Gemeinde in der Anfechtung. (Karl Barth, Die christliche Gemeinde in der Anfechtung Basel: Druck und Verlag Gaiser und Haldimann, 1942.)
142. Barth, Community, State, and Church, p. 118. 143. Ibid.
144. The matter of Barth and ideologies has been thoroughly discussed by Charles West in his Communism and the Theologians. In West's view, "we must start by saying that no one of the theologians with whom we deal in this study, gives as adequate a Christian answer to the intellectual problem raised by the Marxist doctrine of ideology as does Barth." Or again, "Precisely his most original presentations of the themes of Christian faith give us, sometimes for the first time in history, a clear understanding of the way in which Christ himself can be the reality which breaks through all human ideology." (Communism and the Theologians, pp. 216, 235.) M.M. Thomas comments on Barth, Marx, and religion and ideology as follows: "Both Marx and Barth take religion seriously as integrally related to the totality of life and destiny of man. . . . And both of them interpret religion as the creation of the alienated man seeking reconciliation in an illusionary dimension and therefore pointing to a real condition of human alienation which requires radical change." (M.M. Thomas, "Significance of Marxist and Barthian Insights for a Theology of Religion," Religion and Society 21 [December, 1974, 58-66], p. 59.) The article by Joseph Bettis is interesting in this regard. Bettis' aim is to present Barth's theology as an example of the kind of critical theory that "Marcuse proposes as an alternative to the repressive and restrictive rationality of advanced technology." (Joseph Bettis, "Theology and Critical Theory in Marcuse and Barth." Studies in Religion 7 N. 2 [1978, 193-206], p. 203.)
Bonino's ideas on ideologies are very similar to those of Barth. Like Barth, he is aware of Marx's views on religion's ideological content, and he and Barth counter this view by emphasizing God's judgment against religion to the extent that it serves human ends apart from grace. (The relevant section in Barth's Church Dogmatics is "The Revelation of God as the Abolition of Religion", I:2, section 17, pp. 280-361.) Bonino contrasts the biblical and Marxist view of religion as follows: "To put it briefly: in the Bible it is God who de-mystifies man; for Marx it is man who de-mystifies God." (Christians and Marxists: the Mutual Challenge to Revolution, p. 73). Bonino's discussion of Marx and ideologies can be found in Christians and Marxists: the Mutual Challenge to Revolution, pp. 42-50, 58-62, and his comparison of Marx with the biblical criticism of religion, pp. 58-73. See also, Bonino, Room to be People: An Interpretation of the Message of the Bible for Today's World, trans. Vickie Leach (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1979), pp. 14-15. From our point of view, any economic analysis that does not reveal how economic transactions are the result of encounters between nations, classes, and persons, is a form of mystification in that it disguises how people are treating each other in the economic sphere.
145. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:3, first half, p. 255. See discussion pp. 252-61, 69-70. The basic theme of Barth's treatment of human falsehood is that it is an attempt to avoid an encounter with God or others. See the section "The Falsehood of Man," pp. 434-461, and especially comments pp. 440-1.
146. Ibid., point 3, pp. 255-56, and Barth's comments on Job's friends pp. 457-60.
147. Ibid., the section entitled "The True Witness," pp. 368-434. A major idea of this section is that Jesus Christ as the true witness appears in his prophetic office as one who is rejected, despised, and suffering. Hence Barth will use Job as a witness to Jesus Christ in this office. See comment p. 390, also comments pp. 440-3.
148. Segundo, like Barth, understands ideologies and much of theology, as denying historical and social relationships. They are the essence of sin on the intellectual level in that they serve to isolate people and nations from social and historical responsibility. (Evolution and Guilt, pp. 51-60, 61-3.) Nevertheless, for Segundo, they are essential in that they function to preserve the routine and simplicity which are the necessary component of all higher syntheses. On the political level, they serve the useful function of enabling political stability by justifying the cruelty and exploitation that characterize all political systems. "Without such ideological justification, it would be absolutely impossible for societies to endure long periods of time when they in fact sanction flagrant inequities between human beings." (Grace and the Human Condition, p. 39, also p. 54; Evolution and Guilt, p. 95-6.) This, of course, does not imply that oppressive ideologies are to be affirmed, but rather, they are to be used in the evolutionary and revolutionary advance as stepping stones to higher syntheses which implies the adoption of new ideologies of greater complexity and depth. In his view, all revolutions require social structuring, and ideologies provide the intellectual component. In other words, ideologies, like sin and entropy, belong to the nature of things as one pole of the evolutionary advance. They justify the simplicities which make higher levels of life possible. But we may raise a question with respect to Segundo. First, doesn't Segundo leave the door open for justifying a given tyranny as a necessary phase prior to a new order, which, of course, must lie in the future? Specifically, couldn't one say, and hasn't it often been said, that a particular phase of economic oppression is necessary as a stepping stone to a better life in the future? and isn't the real motive to postpone the new order forever? But then we may ask, is it not possible that Barth's purist view would lead to what Segundo would call a "utopian ideal" detached from history? (Grace and the Human Condition, p. 54; note also, Masas y minorias en la dialectica divina de la liberacion, pp. 87-89, for a specific example.)
The Rev. Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D.
1986
Archbishop Eames, Evaluation and Critique
Barth - Economic Life and a History Chapter 5
Barth - Political Responsibility for Economic Life Chapter Four
Building Up the Ancient Ruins - A Response to the Present Crisis
Cranmer on Salvation - Introduction
How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?
Infant Baptism and Confirmation
Introduction to Anglican Theology
Introduction to Anglican Theology - Anglicanism and Scripture
Introduction to Anglican Theology - Articles One Through Five
Introduction to Anglican Theology - Articles Six Through Twenty
Introduction to Anglican Theology - Articles Twenty-One Through Thirty-Nine
It's Not Just Sex, It's Everything - The Virginia Guidelines
Judgment Begins at the Household of God
Jung, the Faith, and the New World Order
Justification, The Reformers, and Rome
Nicea and the Invasion of Bishops in Other Dioceses
Preface to the 1549 Prayer Book
Prefaces and Offertory Sentences
Reason and Revelation in Hooker
Richard Hooker and Homosexuality - Introduction
Richard Hooker and the Archbishop's Address
Richard Hooker and the Puritans
Richard Hooker and Universal Salvation
The Anglican Formularies are not Enough
The Creeds and Biblical Interpretation
The Creeds and Biblical Interpretation Continued
The House of Bishop's Pastoral Study on Human Sexuality - Theological and Scientific Consideration
