strictly dialectics at all, for it is not a dialectical method of argumentation originating in disparate and competing sources of truth and moving toward yet without ever arriving at a singular comprehensive resolution. What we have here is rather the discovery of a highly particular dialectical method of witness, which originates in and corresponds to the revelation-event of a singular cohesive and coherent object—the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
For Barth the resurrection of Jesus Christ bears simultaneously a supremely critical and a supremely positive weight. In its light it can be seen that all things this side of the resurrection are of death—characterized by death and dying. It can also be seen that all things dead and dying are what they are not, and cannot possibly be, that is, truly alive. For Barth, what accosts us in the resurrection revelation is nothing less than the negation of what we are (of sin and death) and the affirmation of what we are not (of righteousness and life).13 This inescapably dialectical structure of witness does not derive generally from the observable realities and processes of the created order. It stems rather from the resurrection revelation, which follows upon the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ. Both critical and constructive forms of knowledge are grounded in this singular and simple source.
In a similar fashion, the resurrection proves to be the key to Barth’s handling of eschatological themes. The Resurrection of the Dead is not to be perceived as a resurrection treatise infused with a preconceived or shifting eschatology, but rather as Barth’s discovery of Paul’s theological method—a form of real eschatological pro- and retro-spection, which has the resurrection of Jesus Christ as its focal centre.14 Paul’s eschatology is informed by his resurrection theology, and not vice versa. The resurrection is both the real object and the authenticating source of the apostolic witness.
To be sure, Barth does not deny the admission of thought about the last days, that is, the times at the so-called end of history, whether they be in the near or distant future, cataclysmic or benign. Yet, in Barth’s view, 1 Corinthians 15 does not speak of last things in this sense, and neither, for that matter, does the New Testament generally. The concern of the New Testament is not such final possibilities within the same nexus of cause and effect as all other happenings. Such last things can only be last things in a world where the fundamental structures remain the same. Last things in a biblical sense have to do with the closing of the continuum in which all creaturely things participate:
He only speaks of last things who would speak of the end of all things, of their end understood plainly and fundamentally, of a reality so radically superior to all things, that the existence of all things would be utterly and entirely based upon it alone, and thus, in speaking of their end, he would in truth be speaking of nothing else than their beginning.15
Paul, in Barth’s view, is referring to the “finiteness of history” as a result of the appearance in time of “that upon which all time and all happenning is based.”16 Thus, Barth takes the “end of history” to be synonymous with the “pre-history,” that is, with “the origin of time.”17 Biblical eschatology then is not about the extension of the world of time into its beyond, but rather about the fundamental finiteness of the world of time, as it is bounded by the eternity of God.
Yet Paul’s gospel is more than merely the proclamation of the death and end of human history. The word of the resurrection is also the first word. Barth is concerned that we do not go only half-way and lose the positive side of what is revealed in the resurrection. It is not merely that God’s eternity sets a limit upon the endlessness of the world-history, but rather that this last word is also to be understood at the same time as the first word of a new history. The history of the end is also the history of the beginning. Hence God’s eternity is to be understood as both the last word that closes history and the first word that establishes history anew. Thus, God’s eternity delimits time but in so doing heals time, giving new meaning and wholeness to time.
In Barth’s view Paul seeks to bring all things into the light of this single recollection: that all things come to death. And having argued that all things assuredly come to death, Paul then speaks of the resurrection of the dead. To speak of death on its own, to speak of the limiting of time and its universe of possibilities on its own, that is, from within the world-time order, is nothing more than a veiled extension of the conditions and potentialities of the same continuum. It is not an end at all, but merely (and as a matter of deep despair) a cosmic narcissism, quite unaware of its origin and end. Barth sees Paul’s emphasis upon the resurrection of Jesus Christ as that which reveals the real limits of world-history and thus grants meaningfulness to our knowledge of these limits. Paul refers to the resurrection only as that which is uttered at the end of all that can be said humanly:
With the word “resurrection,” however, the apostolic preaching puts in this empty place against all that exists for us, all that is known to us, all that can be possessed by us, all things of all time—what? not the non-being, the unknown, the not-to-be-possessed, nor yet a second being, a further thing to become known, a higher future possession, but the source and the truth of all that exists, that is known, that can belong to us, the reality of all res, of all things, the eternity of time, the resurrection of the dead.18
What Barth takes from Paul is that the resurrection is spoken of exactly in this place, exactly in the place where nothing can be said, where it seems that all we have is an inconceivable nothingness. Barth underscores the failure of all merely human reason to deal adequately with the end just at this point. Instead of recognizing the end as real end indeed, as the last word beyond which nothing can be spoken, another merely human word is posited, a new being (or non-being) derived unwittingly from the pre-End reality is put in that place. But it is nothing more than an image fashioned of this-worldly matter (wood and stones) by human hands. In stark contrast, Paul, precisely in this place, speaks of the resurrection. It is in the place where death would seem to have the last word that Paul, in speaking of the resurrection, is able to speak of a meaningful beyond and at the same time maintain the real end character of the last human word.
It is this continual return to the great recollection of death and the meaning and significance placed upon that final word in the word of the resurrection, which allows Paul to proclaim a real end, which brings all penultimate things into crisis, but which itself owes its force and power to the humanly unspeakable word spoken from beyond. The ideas developed in 1 Corinthians 15 then are better described as “the methodology of the apostle’s preaching, rather than eschatology, because it is really concerned not with this and that special thing, but with the meaning and nerve of its whole, with the whence? and the whither? of the human way as such and in itself.”19 With this procedure, Barth claims, Paul is attempting to utter the impossible utterance, hoping despite his certain failure to draw attention to that which only can be heard from the other side of the limitations of world-history. Barth marvels at the daring exhibited by the apostle Paul “to make this impossible attempt in such detail, and offering so many weak points.”20 This chapter (15) stands alone in all of Pauline literature as “the connected exposition of this truth.”21
The Eschatological Unity of the Epistle
Barth devotes the first half of his commentary on 1 Corinthians 15 to an explication of the hidden theme which constitutes unity of the epistle. While acknowledging that the resurrection of the dead is not mentioned explicitly until the fifteenth chapter, he argues convincingly that this theme is the controlling nerve and centre of the whole.22
Barth believes Paul confronts in the Corinthians a form of Christian proto-Gnosticism, which mortally threatens the testimony of Christ in Corinth. In the first major section of the epistle (chapters 1–4), Barth characterizes Paul’s intention as one designed to provoke the Corinthians to a recognition that the human content of the Corinthian Christianity has replaced the Divine content. The charisms (which they possess in abundance) are no end in themselves, but are gifts relative to the Giver.23 Paul preaches the cross of Christ over against the human religiosity of the Corinthians, calling
