as a summons to decision, or can be heard as such only in spite of the untheological beginning? |
If, however, theology is fundamentally the science of Christian proclamation, then it does not have to reply to man’s questions in its statements but man himself is questioned by these statements. Its theme is God’s Word, not the Word of God that is claimed by man but the Word that claims him. It certainly claims man in the whole problem of his conduct. But the problem and the contribution that Christianity has to make to it cannot be the theme. It cannot let its questions be framed by the problem, just as it is a perversion if Christian proclamation does this. It cannot derive and divide them and achieve its basic concepts thus, unless it is content to be merely an inferior replica of philosophical ethics. Justice will be done to the special problem of Christian ethics which must occupy us here when we do not regard the Christian element as just a predicate but as the subject, as is appropriate in a discipline auxiliary to dogmatics; when we do not let human conduct as such be the center, the beginning, and the end of theological ethics, but allot this position instead to man’s claiming by the Word of God, to his sanctification, to God’s action in and on his own action.
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If this determination of the way that lies ahead of us is right, the further question arises how we are to handle and structure in detail the task that is thereby set for us. A first step is fairly simply and self-evidently shown to be necessary. The Word of God must first be indicated and presented as the subject of the claiming of man, as the command that sanctifies him. We believe that in theological ethics we have to seek and find the goodness of human conduct in the event of an act of God himself toward man, namely, the act of his speech and self-revelation to him. Man does good acts when he acts as a hearer of God’s Word, and obedience is the good. Thus the good arises out of hearing and therefore out of the divine speaking. One may also put it in this way. Man does good acts when he is led by God to responsibility. To act in and out of responsibility to God is to act in a committed way. In this commitment the good is done. Thus the good arises out of responsibility and therefore out of the divine speaking to which man responds with his acts. One may also put it in this way. Man does good acts when he acts as a Christian. Theologically this means when he acts as one whom God encounters in his revelation in Christ through the Holy Spirit, so that his action takes place in this encounter or confrontation. To act in this confrontation is to act as one who is addressed. In this being addressed the good is done. Thus the good arises out of the encounter and therefore out of God’s speaking and the encounter in which the confrontation takes place. This is fundamentally the theological answer to the ethical question. Its characteristic feature is that in asking about the goodness of human conduct it understands man as one who is addressed by God and it thus points away from man to God and his speaking, or, more accurately, his commanding. The good in human conduct is its determination by the divine commanding. We shall have to consider more closely what this determination implies. But at all events a theological ethics can seek the good only in this determination of human conduct and therefore only in the divine commanding which produces it. It cannot seek it in human conduct itself and as such. Why not? For the moment we can only state the answer. The concept of the God who confronts man in absolute supremacy, the fact that God speaks to man and man is spoken to by him, is here taken so seriously that the question of the goodness of human conduct can be answered only with a reference to him who alone is good [cf. Mark 10:18], with an assertion of the absolute transcendence of him who is good, except that recognition that the God who alone is good is the one who commands, as an act relative to us and not as a transcendent being, means that his immanence, a highly actual immanence, is also perceived, and therewith, but only therewith, a positive answer to the ethical question is made possible. |
Thus the claiming and sanctifying of man by God, and therefore the goodness of his conduct, really lies in the reality of the divine commanding. How far this divine commanding is an event is the first thing a theological ethics will have to show and develop as a basic and comprehensive principle. In accordance with the doctrine of revelation in the prolegomena to dogmatics we cannot lay too much stress on the fact that the dominant principle of theological ethics, the sanctifying Word of God, is to be understood as an event, a reality which is not seen at all unless it is seen as a reality that takes place. In ethics no less than dogmatics God’s Word is not a general truth which can be generally perceived from the safe harbor of theoretical contemplation. Nor is it a being from which an imperative may be comfortably deduced. God’s Word gives itself to be known, and in so doing it is heard, man is made responsible, and his acts take place in that confrontation. The Word of God is the Word of God only in act. The Word of God is decision. God acts. Only with reference to this reality which is not general but highly specific can theological ethics venture to answer the ethical question. Its theory is meant only as the theory of this practice. But this practice presupposes that it is taking place and only on this presupposition does it dare to give an answer. In the same divine decision, in the same actuality, in the same knowledge of revelation, the knowledge which is itself revelation, the Christian church exists and there is faith and obedience in it. As this decision is taken man acts as a hearer and with responsibility, and to that extent he does good acts. For the decision is that God gives his command to him, the lawless one, and thus calls him out of darkness into his wonderful light [cf. 1 Pet. 2:9].
To understand things in this way is our first task. It will logically take the form of three questions concerning the occurrence, the context, and the significance or force of this commanding. This is the totally different material which in our first chapter must replace the doctrine of philosophical principles so beloved in modern theological ethics.
Obviously, however, this can be only the foundation, the general thesis. How shall we then proceed? When the reality of the divine commanding is presupposed, it has to be made clear how far this commanding applies to man, how far the divine decision about man takes place. The question suggests itself whether, when justice is done in the foundation to the concern for a theocentric orientation of ethics, it might not be appropriate to adopt as a framework for the necessary detailed demonstration one of the schematisms already mentioned, e.g., individual and social ethics, or the rise and development of the Christian life, or will, knowledge, and feeling. Might it not be in place to pick up the concept of personality and character on the one side, or sociological concepts on the other, as empty vessels into which the Christian element is to be poured? Might not the task of theological ethics have to be sought in a Christian illumination of the human microcosm and macrocosm, in a Christian answer to the questions of human life? If it is only a rather headstrong concern for a strictly theological orientation that stands in our way, or if it is in the interests of an attainable clarity to do so, why should we not yield, or at least be able to yield, and put our further questions in terms of the concept of man, especially if the possibilities of putting them in terms of the sanctifying Word of God seem to be already exhausted? But this is not at all the case. |
It is no mere matter of formal interest in a theocentric theology. If it were, then we could take a different course as Schaeder has long since shown that he can do.15 The simple question is whether theological ethics would really act even in the interests of man and his questions about life if it were to give up its birthright and abandon the standpoint which it has the task of making fruitful in the field of ethics. If it has rightly understood itself and its principle, the sanctifying Word of God understood as event, can it wrest the word from this Word and begin to speak about the Word in all kinds of applications? Must it not take seriously the fact that this Word itself will see to its application and above all that it wills to be heard to the very last? So far as their Christian illumination is concerned, will not personality and science and the state and any other conceivable area of human action fare much better if we give the word to the Word, if we let things work themselves out naturally in these areas as the Word is allowed to speak according to its own logic? It cannot serve the cause of clarity if we begin with the concept of the divine command and then try to continue with thoughts about the individual and society or the unrolling of a psychological schema or the variation of a table of Christian duties and virtues. For our basis of ethics can hardly serve as a basis for this, and the concept of the divine command as the basis of ethics can only be obscured by
