authors which are given only abbreviated titles in the main body of the text are given their full titles in the notes along with the place and year of publication and the numbers of the pages in the edition used by Barth. Reference is also made to more recent editions of these works. Quotations from books and writings are given in full wherever possible. When there is divergence from the original wording the note is introduced by a “cf.” and when the quotations are incomplete or there is obviously a formal mistake in the author’s version, the correct text is given in the footnote. Some special difficulties arose in the final chapter when the semester was reaching its close and Barth did not always succeed in expressing his thoughts precisely in the decreasing time available. In one or two instances the editor has here taken the liberty of interpreting grammatically complicated sentences, and in a few others attention is drawn in the notes to obvious errors of grammar, fact, or syntax.
Indexes of scripture references, names, and subjects have been supplied with the help of Sebastian Barth, Gerhard Siegert, and Reiner Marquard, whose cooperation I am glad to acknowledge.
Thanks are also due to Professor Markus Barth, who did valuable preliminary work for this edition and in particular gave me essential help in deciphering one part of his father’s handwritten marginal notes. I must also thank Pastor Dieter Zellweger, Mr. Siegfried Müller, and Mrs. Else Koch for their help in establishing the titles of some older works and their researches in some historical questions. I am especially indebted to Dr. Heinrich Stoevesandt for his expert advice in the grammatical and syntactical clarification of various passages, for his help in verifying not a few dicta whose elucidation demanded skill in detection, and also for many important pointers. He gave me powerful support in preparing this edition, especially in its final phase. Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Fritz Schröter, who read the proofs and here and there suggested improvements in the Ms, and also to the Theologischer Verlag Zürich for its kindness and friendly cooperation.
DIETRICH BRAUN
Abbreviations
| Anfänge I | Anfänge der dialektischen Theologie, Part I: Karl Barth, Heinrich Barth, Emil Brunner, ed. J. Moltmann (Theol. Bücherei 17), Munich 1962, 19662 |
| Anfänge II | Anfänge der dialektischen Theologie, Part II: Rudolf Bultmann, Friedrich Gogarten, Eduard Thurneysen, ed. J. Moltmann (Theol. Bücherei 17), Munich 1963, 19672 |
| CA | Confession of Augsburg (1530), (T.G. Tappert, The Book of Concord, Philadelphia 1959, pp. 23ff.) |
| CChrL | Corpus Christianorum, series Latina |
| CR | Corpus Reformatorum |
| CSEL | Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum |
| CW | Die Christliche Welt |
| Denz. | H. Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum 30th ed., Freiburg 1955 |
| EA (o), e.1. | M. Luther, Werke (Erlangen Edition), 1826ff., rev. E.L. Enders, 1862ff., (opera) exegetica latina |
| EKG | Evangelisches Kirchengesangbuch |
| Ges. Vorträge I | K. Barth, Das Wort Gottes und die Theologie, Gesammelte Vorträge, Munich 1924 (ET: The Word of God and the Word of Man, London 1928) |
| GuV I–IV | R. Bultmann, Glaube und Verstehen, Gesammelte Aufsätze, vols. I–IV, Tübingen 1933–1965 (ET: Faith and Understanding, vol. I, London 1969) |
| Inst. | J. Calvin, Christianae Religionis Institutio 1559 |
| KD | K. Barth, Die Kirchliche Dogmatik, 1932ff. (ET: CD-Church Dogmatics, 195–96) |
| MPG | J.P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, series Graeca |
| MPL | J.P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina |
| RGG3 | Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3rd ed. |
| WA | M. Luther, Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimar Edition), 1883ff. |
| ZdZ | Zwischen den Zeiten |
| ZSTh | Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie |
| ZThK | Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche |
ETHICS I
Lectures at Summer Semesters at Münster (1928) and Bonn (1930)
Introduction
§1
Ethics as a theological discipline is the auxiliary science in which an answer is sought ⌜in the Word of God to the question of the goodness of human conduct. As a special elucidation of the doctrine of sanctification it is reflection on⌝1 how far the Word of God proclaimed and accepted in Christian preaching effects a definite claiming of man.
1
Ethics (from ēthos) is equivalent to morals (from mos). Both are the philosophy of customs (Sitten). The German Sitte (from the Old German situ) denotes a mode of human conduct, a constancy of human action. In general, then, ethics or morals is the philosophy, science, or discipline of modes of human conduct or constancies of human action. As generally defined in this way, however, ethics is not yet distinguished from three other sciences: 1. The psychology of the will investigates the natural constancies of human action; 2. the study of habits, the statistics of morality, or the history of culture enquires into the same constancies as they have achieved freedom and continue freely in history; and 3. the science of law studies them as they have received the guarantee and sanction of political society. Whenever the task of ethics is undertaken as a real task, however, it is understood as one that differs from the tasks of these other disciplines. |
Custom in the sense of the ethical or moral question is something other than the congruence of a mode of conduct with a discoverable natural law of human volition and action. Even the naive identification of natural law and moral law as this may be seen in Rousseau, L. Feuerbach, and E. Haeckel does not pretend merely to describe but also lays claim upon human volition and action.2 Among these three, and even more so among the true perfecters of ethical naturalism, M. Stirner and F. Nietzsche, this identification is a matter of passionate proclamation.3 One does not preach a natural law as the identity of natural and moral law was continually preached from Rousseau to Nietzsche.
