us through human association with history. Herein the anthropological approach to God is denied. Instead, Barth identifies the analogy of faith or the analogy of history for the first time. What is at stake here is that the motives of religious socialism and comprehensive universalism surface for the first time. The Ursprung of the analogy makes religious experience with God possible and justifies human speech about God. By way of dialectics and analogy we have God and can speak of God on the basis of them.
This Ursprung is formulated, in fact, not merely in a negative way but also in a positive way. The meaning of all negations is, from the start, the gaining of a theological position, namely, of a new beginning and starting point of thought. The intention of positive theology is also the intention of dialectical theology. Barth cites a formulation of Cohen to illustrate his point: “‘Non-grounding becomes the ground for grounding of the thought and the willed.’” That is, the critical a priori of Kant becomes a positive-theological apriori of God-thought. As Barth said, “to negate the grounding of the actual as such, that is to say, at the same time to affirm it. Negation of space and time is simultaneously master over them . . . It is the truth and validity of apriori which rests in itself, which proves itself here as the positive side of God-thought.”123
Already in 1914 Barth articulated a positive a priori not only in relation to the grounding of the thought and the willed, but also in relation to the grounding of the actual. In this dialectical framework, the concept of Ursprung is used so that the development of analogy becomes possible. The analogy of Ursprung stood before the conceptualization of the dialectics in Romans II, materially as well as temporarily. Analogy and dialectics can be co-originally set in the thought of Ursprung.
Barth’s thought of Ursprung by way of dialectics and analogy in 1914 can be seen later as a basis for the development of his socialistic theology in the Tambach lecture of 1919. In November 1913 Barth’s Sozipredigten (socialist sermons) caused five of six members of the church board to resign. “Newly elected were the Misters Hans Hilfiker, Wagner, Ernst Widmer, Artur Hüssy, Arnold Scheurmann, a moving company proprietor, and Ritschard, Mr. J. Schärer, School Property Administrator, was elected president.”124
In the sermons of 1913, we notice Barth’s strong preference for socialism in light of the kingdom of God. In a sermon dated 16 November, Barth addressed the socialists’ decision to retreat from the Landes church in Prussia: “The leader of this movement has made a declaration: We are for the religion, but against the state religion. We are for all churches, but against the state churches.”125 The church retreat movement was carried out among Prussian social democrats on October 28, 1913. In all, 1,328 social democrats removed themselves from the Prussian Landes church. For Barth, the church as the state church was without a doubt a disadvantage compared with the watchman office of the old prophets. In his sermon of August 31, he even praised August Bebel, the chairman of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) who had died in Passugs, Switzerland, on August 13, 1913. According to Barth, if we regard a man like Bebel from a Christian standpoint, we must say that he gripped important points about what Jesus wanted much better, and followed Jesus more passionately, than most so-called Christians. Although Bebel made errors, Barth did not hesitate to declare that through him “a voice of God, an announcement of the coming Kingdom of God” could be heard.126
Barth continued articulating his conviction about Bebel on September 14, knowing that many in the congregation were saddened at his death. In Barth’s view, Bebel was a man who had declared God’s Word to his time. The life of Bebel was beautiful, great, and even godly because it was dedicated completely to truth and human rights. “I am delighted about it, because he [Bebel] is for me a sign that God is living in humankind, and that a strong resistance is against the power of egoism. I think just definitely that the loving God needs also such people and speaks to us through them.”127
Several people were offended by Barth’s sermon of September 14. There was even some talk of having him removed from his position. Nevertheless, on the edge of social catastrophe Barth still had hope about a gathering of the Socialist International in Basel’s Münster Cathedral in November 1912 and of a peace conference between the German and French parliaments in Bern in the summer of 1913.128 On November 24 and 25, 1912, the International Socialist Congress took place, and there was a demonstration against the impending war that would become World War I. In Basel’s Münster Cathedral, the International Socialist congress declared war against war in an internationally unanimous decision. In the summer of 1913, forty-one members of German Reichstag had a meeting with 164 French delegates as well as with twenty-one French senators in a conference in Bern in order to advise a communication between Germany and France.
During this time, Barth came in contact with Leonhard Ragaz (1868–1945) who, as one of the most prominent and influential figures among Swiss religious socialists, brought forward his view of the kingdom of God from 1902 onwards during his time as the pastor of Basel cathedral. Starting in 1908, he held a theological chair in Zurich but resigned from it in 1921. As Barth pointed out, “although ‘Religious Socialism’ was also prompted by the younger Christoph Blumhardt’s message of hope, by virtue of its critical and polemical presentation it was already a characteristically Swiss movement.”129 Barth also participated in this movement, read Neue Wege, and conversed with prominent representatives of the movement. However, he was hesitant about identifying himself fully with religious socialism. Interested as he was, he kept his distance from it. In Barth’s letter to his mother on November 20, 1913, he was preoccupied with a study of social questions. He had to teach a course to a group of workers and youth who came to him every other week Sunday afternoon for one and a half hours. Moreover, his wife, Nelly, who was not ashamed to support his work, stated her feelings about the mood of the day: “I am fundamentally fed up with bourgeois society.”130 In connection with his work in the Safenwil Workers’ Association during the winter of 1913–1914, Barth produced an extensive dossier on the “Workers Question.”131
In this “Workers Question,” we see Barth’s connection with SPS and the workers’ union in Safenwil and his effort to provide a more solid theoretical basis for his socialist praxis. Barth lamented, “How stupid that I missed an opportunity to take Wagner’s national economy in Berlin.”132 At any rate, in his “Workers Question,” Barth made use of writings such as Die Arbeiterfrage: Eine Einführung by Heinrich Herkner (1863–1932), who was professor of the national economy at the Königlichen Technischen Hochschule, Berlin.133
Here Barth showed his interest in the history of two important industry plants, namely, the firm C. F. Bally in Schönenward and that of the Sulzer Brothers in Winterthur, both of which are still today considered great Swiss enterprises. Through collecting data, Barth became concerned about the life circumstances and conditions of his parishioners and comrades. Barth’s “Workers Question” was used already in winter 1913–1914 in Safenwil or in Aargau before his entrance to the party in 1915. We shall deal with Barth’s dossier later in more detail. In 1914 Barth spoke on “The Gospel and Socialism” and “The New Factory Act.” In a sermon in June 1914 about the Berne Exhibition (published in Neue Wege), Barth declared that “the evil of capitalism was the consequence of a world without God.” The Christian hope of a new world is to be brought into being by the living God. At the same time, Barth was critical of Friedrich Naumann. (Naumann was an important representative of social democracy in the German Protestant context. Early on, Barth was impressed by Naumann’s social activity.
