world in the Bible. The Bible is a witness to the new world in which Barth finds the being of God extra nos and speaks of the transcendence of God in a theologically positive way. Whoever wants to interpret the Bible must speak of the new world in it. Barth materializes concepts such as the absolute and the new from the standpoint of God in a biblical-theological manner. In the biblical discourse on the new world, Barth defines the Jenseits of the existing society as knowledge of God. The Bible qualifies a contrast between the human/relative and the absolute/divine as a verifiable position. The standpoint of God, which is to be shown in the Bible, is not the image of the individual-relative standpoint of humans, but the example toward which an explicit and univocal action of human being must orient itself.
Barth’s discovery of the Bible enables him not only to make progress in his theological thought but also to deepen his political thought. In these two articles we see how the Bible for Barth begins to break itself out of the encapsulation of modern, bourgeois thought-forms and opens anew knowledge of God beyond churchly self-understanding, and enters into dispute with social idols.246 As Thurneysen states, from the message of the biblical witness Barth saw God’s intervention as the new world in the Bible in the midst of war and revolution.247
Given that Barth understood his lecture activity in connection with his parish work, we notice that Barth arranged the manuscript of a funeral sermon on Safenwil worker Arnold Hunzinker under his “Socialist Speeches.” In other words, for Barth, party and parish work belong together. His funeral sermon was published in the New Free Aargauer (on Monday, September 3, 1917), which was the official publication organ of the Aargau Social Democratic Party and of the cartel of workers’ unions. This sermon interpreted the socialist understanding of death and resurrection in the workers’ particular struggle against capitalism, in light of Barth’s theological subject matter. Here Barth accepted and applied the interpretation without contradiction.
One lives on in one’s matter—in the worker’s matter—and in the end the mourning congregation is requested to “Take care that you understand and grasp the living that was in our dead comrade, and let go of the transitory, human affairs, that lies now over there. Take care of it, you of his sons and daughters, you of his colleagues and comrades, all of you that have known him—and not known him! Then it does not go backwards from this grave into human sadness and desolation, but forwards to new greater victories of life.248
Barth portrayed Arnold Hunziker as an exemplary worker, i.e., as unselfish socialist, not directed by egoistical interest, who has understood “that one cannot live just only for oneself and also only for one’s family, that there is a higher duty, which nowadays unswervingly commands the workers to hold together and to vouch for each other.” 249 Barth saw divine effectiveness in the life of the worker Arnold Hunziker and all the workers. On the eve of Swiss general strike (from November 12 to 14, 1918), Barth wrote to Thurneysen: “It seems to me that we come just too late with our bit of insight into the world of the New Testament. . . . if only we had been converted to the Bible earlier so that we would now have solid ground under our feet! One broods alternately over the newspaper and the New Testament and actually sees fearfully little of the organic connection between the two worlds concerning which one should now be able to give a clear and powerful witness.”250
In response (November 14, 1918) Thurneysen affirmed an organic connection between the movement of God and the revolutionary event of the general strike in Switzerland. The root cause of the revolutionary event, which was implanted by God in the hearts of the workers, consisted in a longing for a new world. Because of his bold assertion, Thurneysen was denounced as a Bolshevik pastor.251 Along the line of Barth, Thurneysen interprets the Bible in terms of the social-historical connection that implies a hermeneutical character. For Thurneysen and Barth a historical-materialistic reflection of understanding process underlies their approach to the organic connection between the world of the Bible and the world of the newspaper.252
The significance of Blumhardt and Kutter for Thurneysen lay in their reappropriating the voice of socialism for the repentance and renewal of the church. In other words, against popular misunderstanding they did not fall into a politicization of the church through socialism, or conversely into an idealization of socialism through Christianity. From this standpoint we see that Barth and Thurneysen were attesting to an organic connection between the Bible and political events. The new world in the Bible has material relevance to what happens politically in our world. Barth tried to find in the Bible actual political orientation toward human action in the revolutionary situation of 1918. The connection between the Bible and the newspaper occupies fundamental hermeneutical significance for his exegesis as well as for his understanding of the Word of God. Reading of all sorts of world literatures and, above all, the newspaper, was urgently recommended for understanding Barth’s Romans commentary.
In the face of the daily newspaper, Romans needed to be understood in a new light. This competence came out of the conversion to the Bible, from inside out, namely, from its own subject matter. Barth’s theology of the Bible explicitly retains this social, political interest instead of withdrawing it from biblical interpretation. For Barth, biblical interpretation has to do with reflection on the relation between God and the Bible and social circumstances. The blueprint of theology should be no other than the preparation for a political sermon and social praxis. As Barth further states,
One day I awakened as president of an eleven-member emergency commission with 6000 francs of cash as capital that was raised by our manufacturers. All at once at the eleventh hour mammon begins to totter on his throne and it is a life or death matter for soup to be prepared in the schoolhouse for everyone. . . . The question is whether such measures can prevent the entry of Bolshevism into Safenwil? . . . The post arrives—again without a newspaper. What is happening in Basel? The cowardly anxiety of the Basler Nachrichten is an amusing point in the general world picture. I wonder what Kutter’s sermon sounded like yesterday, whether or not, and how, perhaps, he found a way to make a public spectacle of the principalities and powers of this age. What are we going to say this time in the coming period of Advent?253
The Bible does not pass by the problem of the political situation. What was at issue is how to articulate adequately the organic connection between the Bible and politics. It was, therefore, of special significance for Barth to identify the organic relevance of the Bible and the political-update event in a theoretical-practical manner. In other words, the Bible is a Word to a theological subject matter as well as a Word to social situation. The primary theme of the Bible and theology is the history of God that renews the world. God who speaks of God’s will in this history is by no means a continuation of human will. In contrast, the will of God radically demands a new creation of humans, leading all human morality, culture, and religion to silence. God’s deed brings a new world to the fore. The Bible witnesses from the beginning to the end to God’s new life of advent, of breaking through. Jesus Christ stands before us as the victor who has overcome the old world. Christ “has become the mediator for the whole world, the redeeming Word, who was in the beginning of all things and is earnestly expected by all things.” “He is the redeemer of the growing creation about us.” What the Bible announces is “that God must be all in all; and the events of the Bible are the beginning, the glorious beginning of a new world.”254
Having faith in the God of the Bible means believing in God’s breakthrough which is begun in Jesus Christ. This faith leads to believing that a relation between God and the human world must be acknowledged as God’s victory. God’s condescension in Jesus Christ, the fight and victory of the kingdom of God are, for Barth,
