THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD
by
KARL BARTH
Translated by
H. J. STENNING
With a new Introduction by
R. Dale Dawson
Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 West 8th Avenue, Suite 3
Eugene, Oregon 97401
The Resurrection of the Dead
By Barth, Karl
Copyright©1933 Theologischer Verlag Zurich
ISBN: 1-59244-383-4
EISBN: 978-1-4982-7081-6
Publication date 10/7/2003
Previously published by Fleming H. Revell, 1933
INTRODUCTION
If the publication of Karl Barth’s second edition of the commentary on Romans1 had something like the effect of someone stumbling in the dark of the church’s tower, grabbing hold of the bell-rope and unwittingly stirring the local ecclesial community,2 the effect of his commentary on 1 Corinthians 15 was rather like the discovery of a lost classic that was quietly dusted off and reinserted inconspicuously into the church archives. The 1924 publication of Die Auferstehung Der Toten, quite unlike that of the Römerbrief of 1921, did not explode “like a bombshell on the playground of the theologians”3 but rather was buried like a landmine, where it has remained relatively undisturbed for more than eighty years. The fact that this work has garnered little attention is by no means an accurate indicator of its importance, however. Quite to the contrary, The Resurrection of the Dead is a work of exceptional insight and exegetical power, not only as a penetrating look into Pauline eschatology, not even as a fresh and illuminating interpretation of Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians (though it surely is this too), but also as a compelling manner of coming to grips with the germ of Paul’s theology as a whole.
Historical and Genetic Context
The occasion for Barth’s extended engagement with 1 Corinthians was an exegetical lecture series in Göttingen. While in his post as Professor of Reformed Dogmatics, it had been Barth’s custom to offer courses in Reformation theology and New Testament exposition, usually featuring an epistle. The course on 1 Corinthians was offered in the summer of 1923. Barth’s preparation for the concurrent course on the Reformed confessions had so preoccupied him that little time was left for the exposition of 1 Corinthians, forcing him to write the greater part of his lecture notes during the summer session. Yet, unlike the rest of his Göttingen lecture series, Barth was pleased enough with the material to edit it for publishing in 19244—a telling decision as regards Barth’s own evaluation of the significance of the work.
In addition to the political landscape of Germany, the vocational and theological contours of Barth’s own life had changed dramatically in the few years that had passed since the publication of his revised Romans. The severe disillusionment of the German people that had followed the First World War (further intensified by near runaway inflation) was being rapidly supplanted by a new and dangerous nationalism. Though a matter of great concern for Barth, his sense of being a foreigner on German soil together with the immense weight of his teaching responsibilities gave him sufficient cause to refrain for the time being from direct political involvement. The shift from the pulpit to the lectern meant leaving behind the routines of parish life and the immediacy of the social concerns of his parishioners and immersing himself in the rigors of academic life including a feverish pace of study to compensate for his perceived deficiencies.5 Plunging into the writings of Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli, he found himself increaseingly drawn to the riches of Reformed theology, not least of which was its emphasis upon the freedom of God and the principle of Scripture.6 And, while the founding of the journal Zwischen den Zeiten (Between the Times) in 1922 had begun to give some recognizable form to the “dialectical theology” movement, significant differences among its young leaders were becoming increasingly evident, such that by 1924 a clear divergence between Barth and his colleagues Emil Brunner, Paul Tillich, Friedrich Gogarten, and to a lesser extent Rudolph Bultmann, was apparent.7 The circumstances (Barth’s professorship and literary outlets) that held out the expectation for further clarification and positive formulation of his theology, proved also to provide the impetus for the emergence of his distinctiveness from these others who shared in the movement. At the time of the publication of The Resurrection of the Dead Barth was already beginning to experience the solitude consequent upon an unflinching pursuit of his own course.
Interpretation
Various proposals have been advanced to account for the development of Barth’s thought at this stage. The highly influential scheme put forward by Hans Urs von Balthasar8 placed this work in an early dialectical phase, at least three years prior to Barth’s supposed turn to analogy signaled in the book on Anselm (Fides Quaerens Intellectum). The Resurrection of the Dead is understood in this theory to be an expression of the principle of finitum non capax infiniti (the finite cannot comprehend the infinite). T. F. Torrance offers a slightly revised version of this view. The Resurrection of the Dead, together with the revised Romans, emphasizes this dialectical tension in terms of an eschatological distinction of time and eternity.9 We are prompted to observe a shift from a “timeless eschatology” (an understanding of eternity strongly influenced by a notion of the absence of the features of time) to a “realistic eschatology” (an understanding of eternity shaped largely by the notion of eternity as primordial and originative reality). Bruce McCormack has done much to correct the deeply entrenched though errant notion that Barth’s thinking shifted from a dialectical to an analogical expression in or around the release of the Anselm book, arguing instead for a view that sees dialectics as an ongoing feature of Barth’s theological expression.10 On McCormack’s view clear evidence of a time-eternity dialectic not yet grounded in an anhypostatic-enhypostatic christological formulation is to be found in The Resurrection of the Dead. Somewhat distinct from Torrance, though with a common emphasis upon eschatology, McCormack finds a noticeable shift from the “process eschatology” of Romans I (the Kingdom of God emerging progressively in the course of human history) to a “consistent eschatology”11 (God’s eternity remaining the “absolute future”12 of all human time). Despite these notable contributions, the account of the importance of the resurrection for Barth’s eschatology at this stage, due in part to the lack of scholarly attention given to this book, remains surprisingly thin. Barth’s desire is to address the question of how it stands with us now that our eschatological hope has been revealed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but not by means of a dialectic borrowed from metaphysics. Barth sees the matter rather as rooted in the crucifixion-resurrection dialectic, the singular divine-historical act, in which the crucifixion is not undone but rather confirmed and superseded (though in a manner inconceivable this side of death) by the resurrection.
It is perhaps best then to understand Barth’s characteristic thought here as neither purely dialectical nor a function of a shifting eschatology, but as a consistent unfolding of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead as a single material terminus a quo and terminus ad quem for all his theological thought. Thus, while we find in The Resurrection of the Dead a form of dialectical argumentation, it is better described as an explication of the crisis of all human being, knowing, and action in light of the
