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Thomas Torrance's Reformulation of Karl Barth's Christological Rejection of Natural Theology

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Thomas Torrance's Reformulation of Karl Barth's Christological Rejection of Natural Theology Scholars Crossing LBTS Faculty Publications and Presentations 2001 Thomas Torrance's Reformulation of Karl Barth's Christological Rejection of Natural Theology John D. Morrison Liberty University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/lts_fac_pubs Recommended Citation Morrison, John D., "Thomas Torrance's Reformulation of Karl Barth's Christological Rejection of Natural Theology" (2001). LBTS Faculty Publications and Presentations. 87. https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/lts_fac_pubs/87 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Crossing. It has been accepted for inclusion in LBTS Faculty Publications and Presentations by an authorized administrator of Scholars Crossing. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 58 The Evangelical Quarterly EQ 73:1 (2001),59-75 Nevertheless, it must not be overlooked that in Del' Romerbrief II John D. Morrison Barth already showed some incipient but clear seeds of ambivalence toward and even revolt against Calvin's theological and exegetical arguments that would fully blossom in the later stage of his theologi­ Thomas Torrance's Reformulation of Karl cal development. More than anything else, his acceptance of the legitimacy of the historico-critical methodology in relation to biblical Barth's Christoiogical Rejection of interpretation was to lead Barth to take considerably different posi­ tions from Calvin's on many biblical passages. In addition, Barth's Natural Theology serious reservations about Calvin's doctrine of predestination, founded upon an interpretation of divine-human relationship by means of the concept of causality, eventually led him to revolt against Calvin's position and to reformulate innovatively his own doctrine of Dr Morrison, who is Pmfessor of Theological Studies at Liberty University, election from the perspective of a Christological and actualistic Lynchburg, here continues his critical studies of the theology of T. F Torrance; understanding of the divine work of predestination. Thus we can see his previous articles on this subject appeared in EQ 67 (1955), 53-69, and that, in spite of Barth's appreciative endorsement of what he sees as 69 (1997), 139-55. ",," Calvin's valid insights and arguments, the seeds of Barth's ambiva­ lence toward his life-time theological mentor, Calvin, were already Key words: Theology; Barth; Torrance; nattii:';l theology /' sown in Del' Romerbrief II ,/ I am the way and the truth and the life':'No one comes to the Father except Abstract through me. (John 14:6) . I tell you the truth, the man wllo does not enter the sheep pen by the gate Karl Barth's theological relationship with John Calvin has been but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. ... I am the gate; ignored by scholars for too long without any legitimate reason. Since whoever enters through me will be saved. (John 10:1,9) Barth repeatedly affirmed his strong indebtedness to Calvin's theol­ ogy, it is essential to explicate his relationship to him in order to Even the unbeliever encounters God, but he does not penetrate through understand correctly the character of his theology. Der Romerbrief II to the truth of God that is hidden from him, and so he is broken to pieces (1922), which was written to replace Der Romerbrief I (1919), shows on God.... The whole world is the footprint of God; yes, but in so far as we choose scandal rather than faith, the footprint ... is the footprint of his that Barth made a very careful use of Calvin's exegetical and theo­ wrath ... apart from Christ. ... We know that God is He whom we do not logical arguments in constructing his own exegetical positions. Even know, and that our ignorance is precisely the problem and the source of though Barth appreciates positively Calvin's theological insight in our knowledge. (Ka.rl Barth, Romans) many aspects, he is not totally approving in his reappropriation of Calvin's wisdom. in particular, one can find the incipient seeds of Natural theology is the doctrine of a union of man with God existing Barth's ambivalence toward and revolt against Calvin in the former's outside God's revelation in Jesus Christ ... (natural theology) exists in the serious reservations about the latter's doctrine of predestination. fact that man depends on himself over against God. But this means that in actual fact God becomes unknowable and he makes himself equal to Goe!. Thus it is arguable that in spite of Barth's appreciative endorsement (Karl Barth, ChuTch Dogmatics, II, 1) of what he sees as Calvin's valid insights and arguments, the seeds of Barth's serious challenge against his life-time mentor, Calvin, were Jesus Christ, as He is attested to us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of already sown in Der' Romerbrief II God whom we have to hear and whom we have to trust and obey in life and in death. We condemn the false doctrine that the Church can and must recognize as God's revelation other events and powers, forms and truths, apart from and alongside this one Word of Goel. (BaTmen Confession) ... the universe confronts us as an open, heterogeneous, contingent system characterized throughout by coordinated strata of natural coherences of orderly connections of different kinds in and through which 60 The Evangelical Quarterly Thomas Torrance's Reformulation 61 we discover an uncircumscribed range of rationality grounded beyond the which is emphatic that the one revelation of God is Jesus Christ universe itself but reaching so far beyond us ... the universe to which we alone? ourselves belong, with the structure of which we share ... so that we find our own rationality intimately connected with its rationality and as open to what is beyond us as the universe it~elf to the ultimate source and ground Karl Barth's Christological Rejection of Natural Theology of all that is in the unlimited reality and rationality of the Creator. Helmut Gollwitzer has stated that 'the theology of Karl Barth is beau­ (Thomas Torrance, Divine and Contingent Order) tiful.' By this he meant not beautiful only in the sense that Barth Karl Barth, throughout his career as Church theologian, was one who writes well, but primarily that Barth writes with passion and objectiv­ consciously sought to think after (nachdenken) ?o~'s self-disclose? ity in relation to the proper Object of theology, the revelation of God. Truth as the triune God and no other, as such obJectJve knowledge IS Barth's one theme is God, the triune God, who has graciously graciously given inJesus Christ. If this then i~ the Pl~c: of the W?rd revealed himself to and in the world to be known as he is in Jesus of God, the revelation of God, any other claIm to dIvme revelatIOn Christ according to the witness of Scripture.! Contra any historicist must be essentially reckoned as the human claim of inherent capac­ anthropologizing of the liberal agenda, Barth looks away from the ity for the divine and as the rejection of the one Word of ?od's gra­ state of faith and from any and all human capacities to direct all ciousness, Jesus. In either case, Barth regards ~~ch claims. to be attention to the objectively disclosed content of the Jaith. grounded in human rebellion, human self-exposItIon, espeCIally as Thus Barth is consciously Christocentric and ~riI'iitarian from first found to be formative of that highest example of human rebellIon, to last. The knowledge of God in the strictly C/hfistian sense is under­ religion, including Christian religion. As natural theology has been stood to be the result of a once-for-all ev/~rft of history. The Word applied to and been formative of Christian theological meth?dol~gy, became flesh and dwelt among us' o.p/l:14). The triune Creator­ especially in scholastic representations of pmeambula fidel (phIlo­ Redeemer God confronts the creature as Object (God's primary sophical and general approaches to the general concep~ ~nd ques­ objectivity) and discloses himself as such via the particular earthly tion of God as introductory to and preparatory for ChnstJan theo­ realities. This revelation is the reality of Jesus Christ and the witness logical assertion), Barth is forthright in concluding that such a claim to Jesus Christ which is effected through him and made efficacious to of a two-fold approach to God, general and specific, is not on~y illu­ persons in the world by the power of the Holy Spirit (God's second­ sory and sinful at its core, but inherently dangerous - tendmg to ary or indirect objectivity). 'What God is as God ... is something always negate the specific, particular, gracious Word in the G?spel by which we shall encounter either at the place where God deals with us the general knowledge of divine reality apart from Jesus Chnst. as Lord and Savior, or not at all. '2 Barth is emphatic about the speci­ As a student and disciple of Karl Barth, Thomas Torrance would ficity and the particularity of all that is truly revelation. Further, seem to find himself in something of a theological-cosmological divine revelation as such is always the revelation of God as he is, in dilemma. On the one hand, Torrance espouses and advances, order to be known in his gracious redemption. Revelation is always through his own significant, constructive theological endeavors, the redemptive in its secondary objectivity. 'Revelation means sacrament, realist objective knowledge of God in Jesus Christ, the Word made i.e., the self-witness of God ... and thus the truth in which he knows flesh, the particular, gracious and redemptive, self-disclosure of the himself, in the form of creaturely objectivity.'" 'The Word became triune God.
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