communities. The church is the inner circle because in hearing and obeying God’s revelation it bears witness to the Word. The state is the outer circle because it often hears and obeys other words, most often found in social and cultural identity (natural law). It is the church’s proximity to the Word that differentiates it from the state. The state is easily corrupted by selfish viewpoints and becomes “ignorant” and “pagan.” “All it can do is grope around and experiment with the convictions which it derives from natural law, never certain whether it may not in the end be an illusion to rely on it as the final authority and therefore always making vigorous use, openly or secretly, of a more or less refined positivism” (164). Still, both state and church exist in a ‘not yet redeemed’ world. The church, too, becomes entrapped in its own misconceptions, ignorance, and forms of paganism. Although the state, as outer circle, is further removed from the realities of the kingdom, the church, as the inner circle, is also a political organization that often fails to perceive itself for what it really is, namely a free church committed solely to the rule of God through Jesus Christ. Both church and state are in a condition of sin and grace; both are corruptible institutions that are, in the eschatological sense, fully redeemed. Yet until the kingdom is fully realized, the church and state (and society) remain in invariably in tension. Although, he clearly states the church, in its witness, should be a ‘nonconformist’ community, and ought not to look to the world for its own identity and vision, but neither should it only look to itself apart from its relation to the outer circle. “The real church must be the model prototype of the real State” (186). This is not because he idealizes the church, but because only the church remains committed to prioritizing the Word of God over the secular ideologies, myths, and philosophies that degenerate God’s name in the world, thus providing a clear witness to the purpose of the state as the outer circle of the kingdom.
Like Rechtfertigung und Recht, Barth argues that the state serves the church by giving it freedom to witness, but by proposing an allegorical or analogical relationship between these two communities, he finds more specific ways to link them together. Avoiding both the demonic and divine temptations, the “just state” (Rechtsstadt), even in its true secularity, seeks to safeguard “both the external, relative, and provisional freedom of the individuals and the external and relative peace of their community” (150). The constitutional democratic state, as guardian, is preserved through its agencies or “forms,” namely “legislation” or the making of laws; the “government and administration” which applies the legislation; and the “administration of justice” which practically applies these laws to particular cases of apparent injustice (150). This threefold system, Barth admits, is most consistent with constitutional democracy and the just state. Politically speaking, he admits “that the Christian line that emerges from the Gospel betrays a striking tendency to the side of what is generally called the democratic state” (181). Nonetheless, although democracy is preferred, there is nothing sacrosanct about its governmental form, as it is possible for even a just state to incorporate any governmental political system from monarchy, aristocracy, and even dictatorship. Still, without the safeguard of a balance of power legally sanctioned within a constitution, it is much easier for these autocratic systems to become a totalitarian state (Totalstaat). There is nothing that presumes that a democracy will always seek order over chaos, justice over injustice, and peace over violent conflict. Yet, it is naïve to assume that all government systems are the same, and they all reflect the purposes of the “just constitutional state” (Rechsstaat).
Therefore, Barth repeats earlier themes when he insists that governmental systems are part of God’s providential plan, in that they preserve order, peace, and justice within the human community by protecting it from various forms of social disorder, violence, and injustice. The threat of political coercion provides the justification for benevolent use of political power and the establishment of civil law within a particular community. The task of the just state should seek to balance the power of individual rights and responsibilities with community rights and responsibilities. The power of the state should not be concentrated either in individualism or collectivism; Barth dialectically opposes the extremes of anarchy and individualism on one hand, and totalitarian and collectivism on the other, because they both deny the ‘law’ that both limits and establishes human freedom. This “two-fold law,” of limiting and establishing, of “no exemption from and full protection by the law,” is what makes a constitutional state just and legitimate and preferable to other forms of political government (172). A constitutional state grounds its authority, not in arbitrary judgments or whimsical power plays, but seeks to base its authority on principles of justice that transcend mere social convention. As a moral realist, Barth assumes that once the state seeks to ground its civil law in the moral law, it seeks to obey the command of God, even though it may not completely understand this command, as a gracious command. For this knowledge, it must seek to rely upon the witness of the Christian community. So even though the state is ignorant of its true center and calling, it desperately needs the church to remind it of its true purposes, functions, and goals. The church stands as a humane reminder that the task of the state is to preserve and defend human freedom, hope, and justice.
However much human error and human tyranny may be involved in it, the State is not a product of sin but one of the constants of the divine Providence and government of the world in its action against human sin: it is there an instrument of divine grace. The civil community shares both a common origin and a common center with the Christian community.… Its existence is not separate from the Kingdom of Jesus Christ; its foundations and its influence are not autonomous. It is outside the Church but not outside the range of Christ’s domination—it is an exponent of His kingdom.… [This] makes one thing quite impossible, however: a Christian decision to be indifferent; a non-political Christianity. The Church can in no case be indifferent or neutral towards this manifestation of an order so clearly related to its own mission. Such indifference would be equivalent to the opposition of which it is said in Romans 13:2 that it is a rebellion against the ordinance of God—and rebels secure their own condemnation. (156–57)
The church stands neither absolutely against the state, nor does it stand always uncritically for the state, but its stands dialectically with the state. The state is genuinely secular, and for it to be otherwise would be to deny its distinction from the church. Since the church encourages the state to be the state in all its secularity, there can be no such thing as a Christian state or Christian political party. The church cannot promote a particular form of government or party to the exclusion of others, without seeking to be itself the state. In fact, the church cannot speak for the state at all, but only individual Christians can speak anonymously for the state. Nevertheless, the church community still remains “the model and prototype of the real state” by serving as “a source of renewal for the state and the power by which the state is preserved.” Indeed the “church can in no case be indifferent or neutral towards this manifestation of an order so clearly related to its mission” (157). As members of the inner circle, Christians “are also automatically members of the wider circle. They cannot halt at the boundary where the inner in our circles meet, though the work of faith, love and hope which they are under orders to perform will assume different forms on either side of the boundary” (158–59). Simply put, it is not possible for the church to be indifferent to the political order because the state’s power is explicitly intertwined with the mission of the church. In this way, the church always remains part of the order of creation just as the state remains part of the order of redemption.
Whereas Barth uses the language of “intercession” in Rechtfertigung und Recht, here he reverts back to Barmen’s language of “reminder.” The church reminds the state of its true purpose, which is to bring honor to God. Although Barth continues the line of thinking established earlier, calling for the ‘priestly role’ of the church, he places a greater activist responsibly upon the church in calling the state to a particular political direction. The church continues to be the church through its intercessory role of being a witness to the gospel, praying and working for the good of the state, making distinctions between just and unjust governments, and declaring firmly that the state falls under God’s rule. However, by “reminding” the state of its function, purpose,
