8 The response of the readers
8.1 Hearing the truth
For Bultmann, as shown in Chapter 3, the most significant aspect of John‟s story about Jesus Christ is the response of the reader to that text. What matters most for Bultmann is not the central character, or the background, or the flow of the narrative, but the individual‟s experience of the story. Bultmann emphasises the effect which the proclamation of the Gospel can have on those who through it hear the divine challenge to respond in faith.
Barth similarly believes that John‟s message can have a powerful effect on people‟s lives, leading to repentance, faith and obedience, but his theology does not focus on the possibilities open to the readers. Where Bultmann‟s interest is in the decision of the individual, Barth‟s interest is in the revelation itself. The Church Dogmatics is therefore written with the assumption that the main purpose of Christian
proclamation is to communicate the truth about God. In Barth‟s view, the primary intended response of the reader to the story of Jesus Christ is simply that of
understanding the truth, since God‟s revelation is the matter of most significance.
Barth does give a careful place in his theology to the actions of human beings in response to the message of Jesus Christ, as will be seen later in this chapter; however, while Bultmann‟s theology emphasises the possibilities of authentic life opened up by the challenge of Christian proclamation, Barth insists above all that dogmatics is concerned with the „content‟ of the Christian Church‟s „distinctive talk about God.‟569
As Barth explores the nature and content of the truth which is revealed to the reader, he relies on John‟s understanding of the identity of Jesus Christ. He writes:
„Revelation does not differ from the person of Jesus Christ nor from the reconciliation accomplished in him. To say revelation is to say “The Word became flesh.”‟570
The Word made flesh is the key idea underlying Barth‟s understanding of the nature of divine revelation, the defining expression of the form of our knowledge of God. For Barth, revelation is real, personal, dynamic and accessible to us, at the same
569 CD I.1, p. 3, my italics
570 CD I.1, p. 119
time as remaining greater than us and impossible to master or systematise. John 1.14, interpreted with a Chalcedonian understanding of the two natures of Christ, is at the heart of his approach. The incarnation is the bringing together of humanity and divinity in a way which preserves the natures of both. A connection is made, but the limitations of the human race in itself and the freedom of God both remain. Just as the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, taking human nature but remaining divine, so the Word of God can be proclaimed to us and by us, while still remaining free and transcendent.
While Bultmann focuses on the individual, Barth emphasises the role of an understanding shared and discussed within the faithful Christian community, insisting that there is „no possibility of dogmatics at all outside the Church.‟ 571 He regards this shared endeavour as a discipline which is wissenschaftliche.572 The English version‟s translation of this word as „scientific‟ is potentially misleading, since Barth is not thinking specifically of the natural sciences. „Scholarly‟ might be a better term. Frei labels the word Wissenschaft as „untranslatable‟, but describes it as
„the inquiry into the universal, rational principles that allow us to organise any and all specific fields of enquiry into internally and mutually coherent, intelligible
totalities.‟573 Barth is presenting theology as a weighty, serious, significant endeavour which has integrity and is worthy of meticulous and lengthy study. It is a distinctive field of scholarship which has a „definite object of knowledge‟, which „treads a definite and self-consistent path of knowledge‟ and can give an account of that path.574
This is an approach to faith which emphasises revelation and shared knowledge, while neglecting areas such as individual decision. Further analysis of the nature of Barth‟s theology can be found in Ford‟s exploration of theology in terms of five grammatical „moods of faith‟. He notes the strong presence of the indicative mood shown in Barth‟s emphasis on knowledge, and also the imperative mood shown in Barth‟s ethics. However, there is a lack of emphasis on the interrogative mood
571 CD I.1, p. 17
572 KD I.1, p. 1 (CD I.1, p. 1)
573 Frei, 1992, p. 97-98
574 CD I.1, p. 7-8
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(„questioning and questioned‟), the subjunctive mood („possibilities and surprises‟) and the optative mood („desiring and desired‟).575
In contrast to Barth‟s narrow focus, John‟s Gospel contains much to stimulate all five moods of faith, as is clear from the wide range of theological and devotional writing which it has inspired. Vanier, for example, comments: „The Gospel of John gives some facts about the life of Jesus, although every fact leads further into a mystery revealed in a symbolic way that tells us something about who we are called to be.‟576
Vanier, like Bultmann, focuses on the possibilities which John‟s Gospel opens up for the reader confronted with its message. He also refers to an experience of being drawn into mystery, of being led into the love of God. Others note that John is a text which invites and provokes questions and debates, rather than delivering an
immediate system of answers. Beasley-Murray writes about the „Enigma of the Fourth Gospel‟, noting: „Everything we want to know about this book is uncertain, and everything about it that is apparently knowable is a matter of dispute.‟577
Pollard refers to the need for Church in its first five centuries „to explicate the double problem posed by the Johannine Christology‟,578 namely the relationship between the Son and the godhead, and the relationship of humanity and divinity in Jesus Christ. Hanson comments: „The Gospel According to St. John was the major battlefield in the New Testament during the Arian controversy. It was the chief resource of the pro-Nicenes but was by no means free of difficulties and pitfalls even for them. It is generally true that the Arians scored heavily in using the Synoptic gospels.‟579 Similarly, Moloney observes: „The Fourth Gospel also generates questions about God that it does not resolve.‟580 Anderson notes: „John is also the primary source of the historic Filioque debates. Does the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father only or from the Son only?‟581
575 Ford, 2007, p. 45-51, 248
576 Vanier, 2004, p. 12
577 Beasley-Murray, 1991, p. xxxii
578 Pollard, 1970, p. 5-6
579 Hanson, 1988, p. 834
580 Moloney, 1998, p. 21
581 Anderson, 2008, p. 314
John‟s Gospel involves us in a process of questioning, not just of God but also of ourselves (as Bultmann saw) in response to its challenge. Lincoln writes: „Readers, then, have to be prepared not only to bring their own probing questions to the Gospel but to find themselves and their values radically questioned by the one to whom it bears witness as the criterion of truth and judgement.‟582
The interrogative, subjunctive and optative moods, being more open-ended and centred on the human subject, do not fit well with Barth‟s strategic, defensive, Christocentric restructuring of theology. He is especially thorough in avoiding questioning which appears to him to challenge the central strategic position of the Word made flesh. Barth issues an explicit denial of the validity of questioning which would appear to set up another position from which God can be judged, insisting:
„The possibility of the knowledge of God and therefore the knowability of God cannot be questioned in vacuo, or by means of a general criterion of knowledge delimiting the knowledge of God from without, but only from within this real knowledge itself.‟583
Barth sometimes also simply deflects attention away from obvious questions. I have already mentioned Rogers‟ description of Barth‟s „rhetorical manoeuvre of announcing one topic and pursuing another‟ in reference to the „eclipse of the Spirit‟, which Rogers suggests Barth performs with „a certain mischievous delight.‟584 Rogers also looks in more detail at the reader‟s experience of studying Barth‟s work on election, writing: „The reader expects to hear about the predestination of the
individual. But Barth thinks that the question “Am I saved?” or, worse, “Is that one saved?” is a terrifically bad question. It‟s narcissistic, and it distracts the Christian from Christ.‟585
These are clearly important questions which would be in the minds of most readers. Barth‟s response, however, is to divert attention away from these questions with hundreds of pages about God, culminating in what Rogers describes as
„delightful obscurities‟ of biblical typology. The result is:
582 Lincoln, 2005, p. 91
583 CD II.1, p. 5
584 Rogers, 2004, p. 175, and see Chapter 5.7 above
585 Rogers, 2004, p. 176
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The reader who makes it to the end has not only forgotten the original question, she has undergone Barth‟s therapy against it. It will not arise again. She has not only been advised – as Augustine, Luther and Calvin all suggest – to look for her election not in herself but in Christ, she has been caused to do so by Barth‟s exposition, and his refusal to expound.
McCormack explains Barth‟s approach, writing: „The question, “To whom does election apply?” is from Barth‟s point of view a secondary question. What is primary is the question, “Who is the God who elects and what does a knowledge of this God tell us about the nature of election?”‟586
Training us to stop asking what Barth regards as the wrong questions is a key feature of his theology, in which large areas of enquiry are placed off-limits for strategic reasons. Barth‟s doctrine of election, with its emphasis on the gracious decision of God, seeks to train us to stop asking about the significance of individual decisions. Although it has a strategic value, this deflection of unauthorised questions is not an approach which fits John‟s Gospel well. As seen above, John appears to others to provoke many questions and to invite readers on a journey of exploration.
Barth‟s focus on the central importance of the Word made flesh comes from John, but the barriers he erects are his own.