problem indicated in the title of the present section. The proviso is that we do not presume to speak in the name of both theology and philosophy but are fundamentally leaving it to philosophy to speak the word that it ought to speak here. The expectation is that philosophy will speak very differently but will not in fact have anything different to say.19
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The Common Christianity of Philosophical and Theological Ethics
Among the results of our deliberations thus far the concept of a Christian philosophy must have proved especially strange from more than one standpoint. In explanation we may observe primarily that “Christian theology,” if the term Christian is to have any significance, is a concept which is not in any sense any more self-evident. Just as well and just as badly as philosophy, theology is a human science. It knows, understands, and speaks on earth and not in heaven. If the word “Christian” is not to be simply a historical differentiation of this theology from similar phenomena in Buddhism or Islam, if the thought behind it is Christ, and therefore the revelation of the living and true God to man, and therefore a science that has as its theme, not one of the revelations of the demonic, which also exist, but the revelation of this the living God, then the question how this science acquires the predicate “Christian” is no less apposite than the question how philosophy, the science of man’s understanding of himself, comes to presuppose God’s revelation and therefore to have a claim to be called “Christian.” One might even consider whether theology’s claim to be Christian is not even bolder than raising such a claim for philosophy, whether the Christian element in philosophy, the revelation of God, cannot have at least the less striking significance of a decisive but unexpressed presupposition, and might not be applied to science as a whole, to art, to education, and finally indeed to any practical area, whereas the Christian element in theology, which is perilously isolated compared to all these fields, claims to arise precisely as the theme of human investigation, assertion, and presentation. Might it not be that for serious reasons there are more objections against the Christianity of theology than that of philosophy? |
We will begin with three negative statements: (1) If the Christian element is understood seriously as the Word of God, it cannot have even for the theologian the significance of a first and basic principle, a definition, which is then adapted to be the principle of further definitions and supposedly guarantees the Christianity of the whole. (2) The Christian element, seriously understood, cannot consist even for the theologian in a specific method, in the deduction of all statements from holy scripture or dogma, or even in the candid and sincere expression of the religious consciousness. (3) Again the Christian element cannot lie in the degree of depth and force of the personal Christian piety of the theologian concerned. Sought in any of these three directions, the Christian element would obviously be under man’s control and it need hardly be shown that it would then no longer be taken seriously as the Christian element, and in spite of the presence of perhaps all the qualities we should constantly have to reckon with the possibility that the theology is not Christian at all. |
Taken seriously, the concept “Christian,” even when applied to theology, can be no more than a pointer to the testimony: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” [John 14:6]. The Christianity of theology does not in any way rest upon itself but upon the revelation that is its theme. In this regard it should be remembered that the revelation is God himself. But God himself is our Lord from and by and to whom we are what we are. In an absolute sense we can have the way, the truth, and the life, the Christian element, only as and to the extent that it has us. “Not that I have already attained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” The one who speaks here is not a philosopher who, as we theologians like to think, has no knowledge as such of the joyful possession of salvation. It is the apostle of Jesus Christ who in Philippians 3:12 speaks thus of that joyful possession. It is thus that the possession takes place. Knowledge of God, as it takes place, is an absolute reality on its own, distinguished by the fact that it cannot be elucidated in any of the forms of human perception even though it always takes place in such forms. It itself apprehends man, not without human receptivity and even spontaneity, but precisely not in such a way that human receptivity and spontaneity take place on the same plane as its own action and might claim to be correlative with it, so that it would then make sense to talk of a religio-psychological circle, but rather in such a way that it can only be believed by man—the same apostle would rather talk of being known than of knowing [cf. Gal. 4:9]—and witness can then be given to it in obedience (“I believe and so I speak” [2 Cor. 4:13]). |
This is how it is with the Christianity of theology. To repeat our polemic against the Roman Catholic view, it is grace. Being identical with God’s Word and therefore with God himself, it is precisely not an instrument that is put in the hand of man. It can be real only in the reality of the act of the living and true God himself. Man can only bear witness to it in faith and obedience and the power of this witness is again that of God and not of man. Bearing witness to this reality of God which reveals itself and makes itself present to us is the office of the church and of theological science in the service of the church. Seen from above, its Christianity, its relation to God’s Word, is with God, while seen from below it stands in the faith and obedience of those who discharge this ministry. On both sides this means that the Christianity of theology is divinely certain but humanly uncertain. The Christianity of theological ethics lies, then, in the reality of God’s commanding, of God’s Word so far as it claims us men and finds our faith and obedience.
Theological ethics confesses God’s revelation in Christ through the Holy Spirit. In accordance with what has been said, this obviously does not refer to the content and form and religious fervor of any confessional formula. Nor is its Christianity guaranteed thereby. It cannot itself guarantee its own Christianity. It can only confess by its act its faith and obedience and its knowledge of God’s revelation. It can only bear witness to the Christian element. It does this when as theological ethics it presents the reality of the Word of God sanctifying and claiming man as God’s command. When it has done this which is its duty to do, then as a discipline auxiliary to dogmatics it must confess with all dogmatics that it is an unprofitable servant [cf. Luke 17:10]. The truth itself must then impress the seal of truth on its presentation. The Christian element must then speak for itself. But the truth is free and the Christian element is free, for the truth and the Christian element are not distinct from God. God, however, is the Lord who in the church and theology as well as his whole creation can be served only by those who are appropriated without being able to boast of having appropriated to themselves what is worth boasting about.
If we have first put theology in its proper place so far as its Christianity is concerned, it should not be hard to see that ⌜under the same conditions⌝ a Christian philosophy cannot be impossible. Again we do not seek its Christianity, or the Christian confession that we have expressly assigned to it in the thesis,20 in the content or form of fervor of a confessional formula. Indeed, we must explicitly say of philosophy in distinction from theology that if it is to be science in the strict sense it must fundamentally refrain from confessing whenever this possibility arises. We commend the celebrated passages in which even the sober Kant could not help preaching in his own way about the starry heavens above and the moral law within.21 But in such passages, even he, not to speak of someone like Fichte, transgresses the limits of philosophy. For the theme of philosophy in contrast to theology is not the Word of God that is to be proclaimed but thinking, willing, and feeling man that is to be understood. Philosophy would be guilty of shifting into another genre and neglecting its own proper function if more than very occasionally it were to become proclamation of the Christian element, which is the business of the church, and of theology within it. |
Philosophy is, of course, called to bear witness to Christian truth, which is truth itself. Nor is it called to do so, indeed, at a lower level than theology. Within the church there is no human activity that is not called to bear witness to Christian truth alongside the church’s proclamation, and again not at a lower level than this. All human action that has God’s Word as its presupposition is witness in this broader and no lesser sense. This applies
