view, Naumann had made a political compromise and so no longer looked for something better beyond war and capitalism. For Barth, however, the sentence “God is” amounted to a revolution. Socialism was, therefore, a very important and necessary application of the gospel.
Karl Barth and Die Hilfe
Before the outbreak of the First World War, Barth reviewed the previous year’s publications of Die Hilfe, whose editor was Naumann. Naumann was influential and reputable within the German Protestant church. He also began, as a liberal, to be involved in the Inner Mission movement in Hamburg. In his earlier thought he held a view similar to the religious socialist movement. Naumann founded Die Hilfe in 1890. However, around 1895–1896 he turned from religious socialism and became a defender of the national state and patriotism. In his statement in Die Hilfe he wrote, “Of what use to us is the best social policy when the Cossacks are coming? Whoever wishes to concern himself with domestic issues must first secure people, Fatherland, and borders; he must be concerned with national power. Here is the weakest point in the Social Democracy. We need a socialism which is capable of ruling . . . Such a socialism must be German-national.”134 Thus Naumann became a strong defender of the German military buildup between 1905 and 1914.
With an invitation from Rade, Barth wrote a review of Die Hilfe which was published in Die Christliche Welt. Barth recognized the great service Die Hilfe had provided over the years with respect to practical social progress, unemployment insurance, trade unions, land, and housing reform. However, Barth noticed that Naumann was no longer capable of bringing to the fore the relevance of Christianity for political life.
According to Barth, politics that raises the necessary concessions and compromises to the dignity of generally valid ultimate ideas is different from politics that make concessions and compromises for the sake of immediate goals. What Barth argued for was a politic of hope, full of revolutionary longing for a better way that would come in the midst of the world of relativity. “It is one thing to become accustomed to the world of relativities, finally becoming completely satisfied and . . . at home in them, as those who have no hope. It is another thing altogether, in the midst of this world of relativities, to be incessantly disquieted and full of longing, fundamentally revolutionary vis-à-vis that which exists, longing after the better which will come, after the absolute goal of a human community of life beyond all temporal necessities.”135
In Die Hilfe, Naumann failed to seek this truth of longing against all that exists. In contrast to Die Hilfe, the SPS took seriously the political momentousness of the absolute God. Christian hope that takes God seriously in the social political arena means a revolutionary unrest, always moving forward, longing for something better in the future rather than being satisfied with what is offered by the world of relativities. What Barth discerned in socialism was this revolutionary unrest and disquiet revealed in longing for the future. However, Barth was aware of August Bebel’s mistake of supporting the military appropriations bill which had been passed by the Reichstag in the summer of 1913. This is what Naumann called Bebel’s “last will and testament.” Such compromises in the Social Democracy did not signify a fundamental change of socialist direction as Naumann had expected. As Barth states, “If the Social Democracy should be transformed into a radical reform party on the soil of capitalism and nationalism as Die Hilfe so much expects—we do not believe it—then that would be for us at most a new disappointment, as the politics of Die Hilfe is finally a disappointment for us, not, however, a proof that a politics which simply capitulates before certain alleged realities is the only possible, the correct politics. We should expect more from God.”136
What we discern in Barth’s review is a theology of radical socialism. There is a direction that has higher political faith, which is, by no means, satisfied with political and economic relativities. Although concessions and compromises are made, they are done in inner contrast to all temporality. Barth found this direction in International Social Democracy. Taking in earnest the ultimate, namely, God, politically, the Social Democracy sought to rewrite politics. This radical revolutionary socialism was based on the standpoint of the absolute, which is the genuine otherworldliness (Jenseits) of all social relativities; it is, in other words, the standpoint of God. This radical socialism that represents the standpoint of God takes a position that is not ready to establish peace with the reality of the present era, with capitalism, nationalism, and militarism.137
According to Barth, Die Hilfe had no understanding of the inner essence of Social Democracy, that is, of the revolutionary unrest, the radicalism, and the enthusiasm. Although Die Hilfe understood the industrial-democratic element, which was the whole reform apparatus in the social-democratic program, it shook its head at their unrealistic ideals. “‘Utopia,’ ‘fantasy,’ ‘outmoded Marxist dogma,’ or even ‘agitation talk’—that is the repertoire of their fight against the left.” The position of Die Hilfe against the left resorted to “placing this utopia and talk into a box, and placing ‘Gegenwartarbeit’ [‘present work’] arm in arm with decisive liberalism.”138
In April 1915, in wartime Germany, Barth went to Marburg with Thurneysen for the wedding of his brother Peter who married Rade’s daughter, Helene. At the wedding Barth had an opportunity to meet Rade’s father-in-law, Naumann. Barth engaged in a passionate discussion with him over the war. Naumann’s position on the war became obvious in his description of religion: “All religion is right for us . . . whether it is called the Salvation Army or Islam, provided that it helps us to hold out through the war.”139 Barth’s disappointment with him led Barth closer to Blumhardt. Barth’s subsequent comparison of Naumann and Blumhardt is evident in their obituary that Barth wrote in the year that the two died. I shall deal with Barth’s obituary on Naumann and Blumhardt in a later chapter on the Tambach lecture of 1919.
The radical-revolutionary hope of the working class was not merely political but theological for Barth. He arrived at this position because his concept of radical socialism came from the absolute God. “It is a religious difference, which separates the hope of the proletariat from the hope of the circle of Die Hilfe. Naumann does not understand this religious difference, and he levels it off to a mere political difference.”140 However, what is central to Barth’s position is well articulated in his understanding of hope: “in the midst of this world of relativities, to be incessantly disquieted and full of longing. To be fundamentally revolutionary against that which exists. To long after the better which will come, after the absolute goal of a human communal life beyond all temporal necessities.”141
Barth believed that the one who seeks faith in Jenseits of war and capitalism, as Die Hilfe does, seeks in vain. The hope and longing for the new and the better has its origin and telos outside Jenseits of all temporal necessities because this hope comes from God. Therefore accommodation to an existing reality or the status quo is perpetually challenged and discredited since we should expect more from God. In Die Hilfe Barth spoke of God in political relevance and developed his discourse of God in the context of social justice, revolution, socialism, and radicalism. Barth critically supported revolutionary leftist socialism before World War I and interpreted socialistic theory and praxis in light of his understanding of God, who is Jenseits of all temporal necessities. Thus Barth integrated socialistic theory and praxis into his theology. In other words, Barth attempted to see the “left” of socialism grounded in the “above” of God because he deepened and actualized God as the radically Novum in the context of a radically new society. As Danneman states, “In the bringing-in of the transcendence-thought (God and socialism as the Jenseits of the world of capitalism) lies the theology of Barth’s radical socialism.”142
