Clasificación de las actitudes hacia la ciencia.

We have covered the features of Barth’s theology of revelation that are salient for clarifying his from-above-to-below theological epistemology. But before we begin to investigate the implications of these features for the relationship with philosophy, we should first take note of the connection between revelation and personal transformation. Just as the way of knowing God is fundamentally different from the way we know other objects of knowledge, so too is the nature of the knowing itself unlike any other knowledge. We have already touched upon this uniqueness when we looked at Barth’s claim that God is not just the object but he is also, particularly as the Spirit, the subject of the knowing. For theological knowledge to be possible, according to Barth, we must be drawn up, by the gift of the Spirit, to participate in the knowing by which God knows himself. God cannot properly be known from a distance. Theological knowing requires that God establish a relationship, a relationship that cannot but be not only cognitively illuminating but also personally transformative. For this reason Barth speaks of God’s address as, “the transposing of man into the wholly new state.”69 The knowledge of any object has far reaching and determinative consequences for the knower. We exist in relationship to, though distinct from, the objects of our knowledge both past and present. Barth provisionally defines knowledge as “the confirmation of human acquaintance with an object whereby its truth becomes a determination of the existence of the man who has the knowledge.”70 If this is so for ordinary objects, then how much more significant (and

68

CD I/1, 168 (KD I/1, 175, “Was zunächst wie ein absurdes Hindernis erscheint, daß Gott sich selbst in dem Weg legt, das eben ist sein wirklicher . . . Weg zu uns”).

69

CD I/1, 152 (KD I/1, 158, “die Versetzung des Menschen in den ganz neuen Stand”). 70

CD I/1, 198 (KD I/1, 206, “diejenige Bewährung menschlichen Wissens um einen Gegenstand, durch den sein Wahrsein zu einer Bestimmung der Existenz des erkennenden Menschen wird”). Barth is clear that no general definition of knowledge can be imposed or presumed. Definitions must be left open to correction “in the light of the object concerned” (CD I/1, 190; KD I/1, 197).

radically different) must the determination of the existence of the knower be in the human acquaintance with God.

The impact of the Word of God is on all human faculties, not “intellect alone, yet at any rate the intellect also and not last of all.”71 Revelation never fails to be cognitive, but “the determination of human existence by God’s Word can be understood just as much as a determination of feeling, will, or intellect.”72 “Πίστις says more than γνωˆ σις,but in all circumstances it says γνωˆ σις too.”73 It is therefore the whole person who is impacted by this revelation. We have already established that the barrier of our fallenness is overcome in revelation. The impact on the whole person in the experience of knowing God is a turning of our rebellion against God and a being brought into conformity with God. “To have experience of God’s Word is to yield to its supremacy.” 74 “It comes . . . in such a way as to bend man, and indeed his conscience and will no less than his intellect and feeling. It does not break him; it really bends him, brings him into conformity with itself.”75 Every aspect of who we are is touched by revelation. Revelation is made possible by the gift of faith, which is required for those without eyes to be able to see Him.76 But this gift and the seeing imply a reconstitution of our minds, the submission of our wills and the transformation of our being.77

We must be cautious, nevertheless, about the conclusions drawn from the insistence that revelation involves whole person transformation. There are a least three faulty inferences that must be avoided: Firstly, the consequence of personal transformation must never be read backwards as a condition of revelation. Repentance and obedience are given with the gift of faith, they are not a pre-requisite for revelation. Barth leaves no

71

CD I/1, 205 (KD I/1, 214, “nicht nur den Intellekt, aber jedenfalls auch und nicht zuletzt den Intellekt”). 72

CD I/1, 204 (KD I/1, 213, “ebensowohl als eine Gefühls- wie als eines Willens- wie als eine Intellektsbestimmung verstanden werden”).

73

CD I/1, 229 (KD I/1, 241, “Πίστις sagt mehr als γνωˆ σις, es sagt aber auch und unter allen Umständen auch

γνωˆ σις”).

74

CD I/1, 206 (KD I/1, 215, “Erfahrung vom Worte Gottes haben heißt zurückweichen vor seiner Überlegenheit”).

75

CD I/1, 206 (KD I/1, 215, “es kommt . . . so, daß es den Menschen und zwar sein Gewissen und seinen Willen ebenso wie seinen Intellekt und sein Gefühl beugt—nicht zerbricht, aber wirklich beugt, in eine Konformität mit sich selber bringt”).

76

CD I/1, 223 (KD I/1, 234). 77

Barth understands the New Testament notion of repentance (µετανοεινˆ ) to refer not only to a transformation of the mind, but more comprehensively to death and rebirth (CD I/1, 387; KD I/1, 408).

doubt that, in his view, the Word of God is spoken in “unconditional freedom.”78 Secondly, following from the first, God is free to reveal Himself by the Spirit in Christ to all people. The free revelatory work of the Spirit is not confined to the institutional church or only to those who have “professed Christ.” Thirdly, following from the second, the personal transformation involved in revelation does not create a privileged class of God- knowers. The transformation that comes with revelation neither revives nor implants an independent capacity for knowing God. While it is true that “a new, regenerate man will arise” it is also true that he “does not possess this regenerate man.”79 There is no sense in which one is transformed to stand as a new creature on one’s own, as if it were possible to have direct access to the knowledge of God outside of communion with God freely established by God.80 Barth seems most anxious to dispel this erroneous conclusion because of its seductive appeal in the history of theology.81 To grant that there could be a human faculty which enables independent knowing of God is to ignore all that Barth believes we discover about the nature of revelation in the gift of revelation. Our dependence on God’s breaking through from above to below is removed if there is another more direct channel of knowing that is under our control. For Barth, the God we know to be God in his revelation could not be known in any other way.82 Moreover, it is impossible to have any assurance in a knowledge of God delivered by a human faculty. This move would attempt to ground faith in a human source, thus dangling it over the abyss of uncertainty and opening the door to the diabolical illusion of a way of theological knowing from below to above.

78

CD I/1, 157 (KD I/1, 164 , “unbedingte Freiheit”). 79

CD I/1, 222 (KD I/1, 311 , “Ein neuer, ein wiedergeborener Mensch wird . . . dastehen” “nicht diesen neugeborenen Menschen besitzen”).

80

In Revelation and Theology: The Gospel as Narrated Promise (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame

Press, 1985), 42–43, Ronald Thiemann argues that Barth “denies us our humanity” by stipulating that God is only known when the human subject is given a participation in God’s self-knowing. He suggests that the human subject is discounted because the human is not the one doing the knowing in that relation. Thiemann fails to consider the possibility of a real human participation in Christ’s human knowing of the Father. This charge ignores Barth’s strong affirmation of humanity inherent in the participation by which the human subject genuinely, humanly knows God.

81

We will meet these concerns particularly in chapter 5 where we look at what room Barth and Plantinga make for natural theology.

82

“The revelation attested in [Scripture] refuses to be understood as any sort of revelation alongside which there are or may be others” (CD I/1, 295; KD I/1, 311).

The personal, cognitive, self-attesting, divinely initiated knowledge of God can never be conceived of as anything other than gift freely given. Barth strictly maintains that nothing could merit or deliver independent access to the knowledge of God. Nevertheless, revelation could not involve a person’s participation by the Spirit in Jesus Christ, the Word of God, without also transforming that person. This transformation involves the reconstitution of mind and will such that the knower is brought into conformity with God, a transformation that is maintained only in the knowing relation effected by the Spirit in the gift of faith. This is, of course, not to say that personal transformation is comprehensive and instantaneous, though the ultimate goal of reconciliation is the regeneration of the whole person. It is with these provisos that the forth observation about Karl Barth’s theological epistemology should be understood: 4) knowing God effects a personal transformation in conformity with God.