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A Critical Survey of Karl Barth’s Goethe-Reception 153

Chapter 7 A Critical Survey of Karl Barth’s Goethe-Reception

Thomas Xutong Qu

1 Introduction

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) is one of the most influential “poets and thinkers” in German intellectual and cultural history. Karl Barth (1886– 1968) is a German speaking Swiss theologian, who is deemed as the “church father of the 20th century.”1 In the history of Barth scholarship, my book Barth und Goethe: Die Goethe-Rezeption Karl Barths 1906–19212 is the first attempt to elaborate Barth’s Goethe-reception both historical-genetically and systemati- cal-theologically. Based on this book, this article will give a critical survey of Karl Barth’s Goethe-Reception, especially from 1906 to 1921. In a short sketch for the first look, Barth’s Goethe-reception could be divid- ed into four phases: 1) 1906–1918 is the first phase, in which the first version of Barth’s commentary on The Epistle to the Romans (1918)3 is the climax of his early theological thinking and the monument of his Goethe-reception. To this period belongs not only Barth’s growing interest in Goethe under the influence

1 Jörg Dierken, “Karl Barth (1986–1968),” in: Klassiker der Theologie, Band 2: Von Richard Simon bis Karl Rahner, hrsg. von Friedrich W. Graf (München: C. H. Beck, 2005), 223; Eberhard Jüngel, Barth-Studien (Zürich-Köln: Benziger, 1982), 19. Already in his lifetime, Barth was called by a Catholic priest as “Church Father of Bruderholz,” where Barth lived his later life in , Switzerland, cf. Karl Barth Briefe 1961–1968, hrsg. von Jürgen Fangmeier und Hinrich Stoevesandt (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1975), 479; Karl Barth – Carl Zuckmayer: Späte Freundschaft in Briefen, hrsg. von Hinrich Stoevesandt (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1991), 61, 95. This description could perhaps be traced back to Barth himself, when he considered Schleiermacher as “the Church Father of the 19th century,” Karl Barth, “Nachwort,” in: Schleiermacher-Auswahl, hrsg. von Heinz Bolli (München und : Siebenstern, 1968), 290. 2 Thomas Xutong Qu, (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2014). When there is no other indica- tion, page numbers in this summary come from the book. For the further details, please see the book itself. 3 This commentary was actually printed and distributed during the Christmas time of 1918, not in the spring of 1919, cf. Barth’s letter to Eduard Thurneysen on December 7, 1919, Karl Barth – Eduard Thurneysen Briefwechsel, Band 1: 1913–1921, bearbeitet und hrsg. von Eduard Thurneysen (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1973), 306, 308; Eberhard Busch, Karl Barths Lebenslauf nach seinen Briefen und autobiographischen Texten (München: Chr. Kaiser, 1986), 118.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004409910_008 154 Qu of Adolf Harnack (1906–1908), but also Barth’s slowly declining interest in Goethe owing to his theological transition before and during the First World War (1909–1918). This phase is the most important stage of his Goethe-recep- tion. 2) In 1919, Barth began to distance himself gradually from Goethe. The beginning of this intellectual departure could be seen in Barth’s famous Tam- bach lecture “The Christian in Society” (1919). In this phase, Barth still paid at- tention to Goethe’s intellectual world, but with more critical judgments.4 3) From 1932 onwards, Barth gained “a new relationship with Goethe.”5 He began to read Goethe once again in the summer of 1932. In this phase, Barth used to take an occasional “excursion” into the region of pagans, among whom Goethe is an esteemed representative.6 4) In the 1950s, the later Barth began to read Goethe once again intensively. In this phase, many significant references to Goethe can be found in the context of comparing Mozart and Goethe. Therefore, we could say that Barth has paid continuous attention to Goethe and his works during his entire theological life. However, academic circles, both from theological and from German studies, have not been aware enough of his Goethe-reception. It is perhaps because Barth himself had not left any single complete text about Goethe, there is no detailed monograph on Barth’s relationship with Goethe prior to my book. Only a few scholars such as Thom- as Kucharz,7 Karlmann Beyschlag,8 Karl Robert Mandelkow,9 Hans-Anton

4 For example, concerning the difference between Reformation and Middle Ages, Barth con- sidered Goethe as a man who belongs not to Reformation, but to Middle Ages, Karl Barth, Die Theologie Calvins 1922, hrsg. von Hans Scholl (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1993), 42, 52. 5 Karl Barth, “How My Mind Has Changed 1928–1958,” Der Götze wackelt: Zeitkritische Aufsätze, Reden und Briefe von 1930 bis 1960, hrsg. von Karl Kupisch (: Käthe Vogt, 1960), 186. 6 Cf. Barth’s letter to Erik Peterson on August 22, 1932, Erik Peterson, Theologie und Theologen: Teilband 9/2: Briefwechsel mit Karl Barth u.a., Reflexionen und Erinnerungen, hrsg. von Barbara Nichtweiß (Würzburg: Echter, 2009), 322. 7 In his dissertation Theologen und ihre Dichter: Literatur, Kultur und Kunst bei Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmann und Paul Tillich (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, 1995), Thomas Kucharz mentions the name Goethe only occasionally, mostly parenthetically with other names within a biographical-historical description of Barth’s literature reading. It is prob- ably because that Kucharz considers Barth’s Goethe-citation only as occasional and rhetori- cal, and traces this reception back to his early education. 8 In his article “Goethe im Urteil der neueren evangelischen Theologie” (in: Humanitas- Christianitas. Walther v. Loewenich zum 65. Geburtstag, hrsg. von Karlmann Beyschlag, Gottfried Maron und Eberhard Wölfe, (Witten: Luther-Verlag, 1968), S. 205–221), Karlmann Beyschlag has taken cognition of the theological relevance of Barth’s Goethe-reception, but Beyschlag’s focus is more on the standpoint of Friedrich Gogarten and his representative dialectic-theological refusal of Goethe, since Barth has written no full text about Goethe. 9 Much more further than Karl Mann Beyschlag, Karl Robert Mandelkow speaks about the theological relevance of Barth’s Goethe-reception in the horizon of the confessional critic