Barth’s reflections on the word of God continue to serve a program of not only reenvisioning what the word of God itself might be, but also of deconstructing ways of conceiving such a word that would enable us to think that we have mastered it–rather than always being in a position for it instead to master us (§1.5.4).
I found myself celebrating such outbursts as these:
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Is it clear to our generation in life as well as thought that the serious element in serious theological work is grounded in the fact that its object is never in any circumstances at our command, at the command of even the profoundest biblical or Reformation vision or knowledge, at the command of even the most delicate and careful construction? Absolutely any theological possibility can as such be pure threshing of straw and waste of energy, pure comedy and tragedy, pure deception and self-deception.
All this talk of mystery seems to be deeply indebted to Luther’s theology of the cross. The paradox Barth wants us to grapple with is that the mysterious word is mystery as a word that is spoken and revealed. That is, it’s not mysterious in that God is outside the world and we cannot know him or he cannot speak to us. It’s mystery in that God has in fact made himself knowable and spoken, yet within this sinful world.
The place where God’s word is revealed is objectively and subjectively the cosmos in which sin reigns. The form of God’s Word, then, is in fact the form of the cosmos which stands in contradiction to God.
One reason why I think that this discussion of the word of God is so important is that it’s an early attempt to reiterate a theology of the word of God after the advent of modern, critical study of the Bible. 
Now, nothing that Barth says here requires the “insights” about the Bible’s humanness that have become stock and trade of contemporary biblical scholarship; however, the recognition that the word of God must always be spoken through the secular is one that the church simply cannot ignore at this point in history. And we have to figure out how to continue saying “yes, God has spoken,” while simultaneously saying, “Yes, these are the words spoken with a secular world with all of its limitations–including but not limited to the limitations of the sinfulness of the humans that wrote it.”
What is it to believe such a word?
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Hence believing means either hearing the divine content of God’s Word even though nothing but the secular form is discernible by us or it means hearing the secular form of God’s word even though only its divine content is discernible by us.
So what?
As I’ve been reading through Barth’s word of God theology, I’ve been bringing it into regular conversation with two recurring challenges facing the church’s understanding of scripture that suffuse my research interests. Both are reflected in yesterday’s post on Psalm 45.
The issues are these, and I believe they are related: What are we to do with the NT writers’ use of the OT, which seems to give revisionist readings of the OT documents? And, what are we to do with the church’s reading of the NT, which often sees a more developed theology, in particular a higher Christology, than was likely to have been present in the NT texts themselves?
If Barth’s account of the “word of God” is on target, it opens up space for God to speak differently at different times through the same human words.
Part of the anxiety that swirls around the “misreading” of the texts is the notion that what Barth refers to as the “secular” aspect of the words of scripture must map perfectly onto the “divine” that is spoken in them.
But if in fact these are human words that God can put to use in different times and different places, there is no reason why God might not inspire a word of celebration for the king of Israel that would not have been seen as prophetic to its author and “original” celebrants–but that could be heard as true of Christ in a way that it could never be true of a Davidic king.
Analogously, the NT can speak of Christ as “son of God” with the overtones of Davidic kingship, and there is nothing to hinder a fresh hearing of those words by the church as an indication that Jesus is “son of God” in a sense that it could never be true of either Adam or David or even of us who are also sons and daughters of God.
There is both a binding of God to the story of Scripture, and a maintained freedom of God in its use and reception in the church. Barth might be onto a way to hold these together. Which might, also, provide us with a way to hold together historical-critical scholarship and the theological reflections of the church.
“If Barth’s account of the “word of God” is on target, it opens up space for God to speak differently at different times through the same human words.”
I find this paragraph to be exciting in all its possibilities. I don’t know if Barth talks about canonicity at all, but following someone like Brevard Childs, what about the idea of Scripture being reshaped and reinterpreted within an evolving canonical context as well? So an epistle of Paul is more than an epistle of Paul when canonized, because it becomes related to the other text in such a way that we can call it “God’s Word”? Just a thought off the top of my head.
Nice post.
I like his premise, that is, that God is Lord over his word and uses it however he wants. (Even, as you think, by using Scripture in different ways than originally intende.) My only problem is how does that work out practically when it comes to shaping faith and practice if the meaning can change?
(I feel the word ‘story’ coming on in 3, 2..)
I do think that some sort of recognition of a narrative model, as opposed to a “system” or “law” model helps here. We have to figure out not merely what it meant and what they said, but what it means and what we must say on the basis of what they said. Practically, it means doing with scripture what normal people are always doing with scripture: saying it means something to them, that God gave them a word by it, that has nothing to do with its “original” historical meaning.
Your comments clarify some questions I had on this section. You said:
“If Barth’s account of the “word of God” is on target, it opens up space for God to speak differently at different times through the same human words.”
Do I understand correctly that Barth was saying that some Scripture read and some proclamation made could be God’s word to me, but might not?
A related question is what it means for the “church” to hear God’s word. Isn’t God’s word to us, when it occurs, an extremely personal event?
Thanks for your post.
Barth Student, Sorry to be so long getting back to you.
Yes, I do think that the point of some of KB’s reflections on “word of God” mean that scripture and/or preaching might or might not be “word of God” to you. And the scripture that is word of God to you today might not be tomorrow.
I’m not exactly sure how Barth would respond to the second part of your question. On the one hand, there is a significant place in Barth for the response of the individual, perhaps trying to hold onto what is good about the concerns with existential experience that others in his generation (Bultmann, etc.) were concerned with. Also, note the need to experience the word of God as an event at any given moment.
But there is also a significant focus on the church as the primary locus within which that word is spoken and heard and acted on–because the church is the body of Christ which means that it is Christ on earth. That corporate dimension comes into play as well.
Dr. Kirk
Thank you. No apologies required.
I do understand the focus on the church as Christ’s body and, I think, its superior importance over the individual in receiving God’s revelation. I guess my understanding of how the church hears God’s word as opposed to how I hear it individually may not be important. It’s just something I am trying to figure out.
I look forward to your next installment.