Barth on Dogmatics--Commentary 3

“There would be no dogmatics and there would perhaps be no theology at all, unless the Church’s task consisted centrally in the proclamation of the Gospel in witness to the Word spoken by God.”

“Exactly halfway between exegesis and practical theology stands dogmatics…”

“In dogmatics our question is: What are we to think and say (and do)?”

I add the “and do” to the last quotation because, historically, the Church has gotten so tied up in what it says without backing up what is said by actions. I believe that this is what Barth is after in his work: the answer the question “How is it we should live?”

The initial form of the question fits more into the historical discussion of theology and dogmatics, but I believe this is the reason why we have focused on developing programs within the Church and not with developing missional activity. I define missional activity as living in a way that reveals the “image of God.”

This to me is what “the proclamation of the Gospel in witness” is all about. It is about living…which includes both speaking and acting. And, I believe, that by acting in a way that is more consistent with our speaking is a more powerful message than just telling other people what our message is. I believe that this is what Barth is telling us.

From this, one can interpret the statement that dogmatics is “halfway” between exegesis and practical theology. Exegesis can be defined as “explanation and critical interpretation” of, in this case, “the Word spoken by God.”

Princeton Theological Seminary has a Department of Practical Theology. This is what the Seminary has to say about practical theology and the mission of this department: “The Seminary’s mission is to prepare women and men to serve Jesus Christ in ministries marked by faith, integrity, scholarship, competence, compassion, and joy, equipping them for leadership worldwide in congregations and the larger church, in classrooms and the academy, and in the public arena.” That is, practical theology has to do with “where the rubber hits the road.”

If dogmatics is “exactly halfway” between exegesis and practical theology then one can see dogmatics at taking the model of the Church and transforming it into practice.

I use the term “model” here because “model building” is exactly what people do when they construct a “worldview” and that is what people, pupils or teachers, do when they go about exegesis. These people attempt to “explain” and “critically interpret” the Word of God. That is, they are building a “model”.

This model can, and should, be used in problem solving and decision making. That is what humans do best. A model is something that helps us to solve more and more difficult problems and to make better decisions.

Dogmatics represents an attempt to take a model and turn it into the proclamation of God so that it is used in solving problems and making decisions. Exegesis can become sterile and “other-worldly”. It can become useless in the sense that it bears no relationship to the lives that people have to live.

Dogmatics, as Barth is defines it, seeks to keep the proclamation of God relevant to lives, to make it useful, to change lives.

The proclamation of God has to do with what we do. Therefore, it must be alive and vital and meaningful. If the proclamation of God becomes irrelevant to the needs of people to problem solve and make decisions in the world they live in, they will seek other “models”.

Barth writes, “Outwardly, dogmatics arises from the fact that the Church’s proclamation is in danger of going astray. Dogmatics is the testing of Church doctrine and proclamation.”

We must continually “test” the relationship between exegesis and practical theology.

“The correction, the deepening, the increasing precision of what is taught in our Church can only be God’s own work although not apart from man’s effort. “

Thus, the question must always be, “What is the evidence?”

“Not the evidence of my thoughts, or my heart, but the evidence of the apostles and prophets, as the evidence of God’s self-evidence.”

I like the phrase that Stanley Hauerwas used for the title of his Gifford lectures, “With the Grain of the Universe.” This, to me, gives us the ultimate test of the proclamation of the Gospel. God’s Word should bring us into greater unity with His creation. If our speech and our actions conform with God’s Word then we should be in unity with His creation and we should feel this because our actions are “with the grain of the universe.” We are moving “with” creation and are not acting “across the grain” of the universe.

If our actions are not with the grain of the universe…we become dis-satisfied, and anxious and, sometimes, alienated. Things just don’t feel right.

This is why our “practical theology” must be in line with our exegesis. This is why we must continually test the waters. And, in this sense, this is why “dogmatics” is pragmatic. It must work. It must bring into alignment with the grain of the universe.

Models are abstractions. Yes, we believe that we have received “the Word of God,” but explaining the Word of God and critically interpreting how it can be put into practice depends upon human beings. And, human beings never have the luxury to work with “complete information.” That is, humans never have the whole story.

Thus, our models, which are abstractions, are partial and therefore ultimately fallible. We must continually test our models and test the results of applying our models. This, I believe, is what Barth is teaching us. We must continually bridge the gap between exegesis and our actions. To Barth, dogmatics is the way that we do this.

Barth on Dogmatics--Commentary 2

“The subject of dogmatics is the Christian Church.”

Barth tells us, “where dogmatics is pursued, we find ourselves in the sphere of the Church.” This means that to be familiar with dogmatics, one must be familiar “with the life of the Church.”

The Church is embedded in history and the specific environment of each period in history. The Church is dependent upon the “state of knowledge” at a particular time.

But, the history of the Church is a “human, earthly history; and so it is not quite indefensible for Goethe to say of it that in all periods it has been a hotch-potch of error and power.”

In other words, the Church is a human institution, currently framed in the existing “state of knowledge” of the world, “charged with the object and the activity with which dogmatics is concerned—namely, the proclamation of the Gospel.”

To me, the primary thought here is that the Church is “charged” with the “object and activity” of the model or world view that the Church adheres to. That is, it is within and through the Church that the Church’s model is both examined and acted upon.

The Church’s model is examined and subject to thorough study at all times. “Christian dogmatics will always be a thinking, an investigation, and an expositions which are relative and liable to error.” Without constant scrutiny, the Church’s model can become dated and turned into an idol.

“We must use our knowledge as it has been given to us to-day.”

“Even dogmatics with the best knowledge and conscience can do no more than question after the better, and never forget that we are succeeded by other, later men; and he who is faithful in this task will hope that those other, later men may think and say better and more profoundly what we were endeavoring to think and say.”

We do the best we can. We use all the facilities we have. And we try to make the Christian model make sense within the world we live in.

But, dogmatics does not stop there. We are also charged with the responsibility for action. We much represent the model of the Church in what we do. Christian dogmatics is not just an academic subject. Christian dogmatics in not to be used for withdrawing from life. Christian dogmatics is to be applied in a way that the model of the Church, the proclamation of the Gospel, is revealed to others in our actions.

In essence, Christian dogmatics is the foundation for how we think and act in the modern world. It is the foundation of what we reveal to the rest of the world.

Be cautious, however, for, as Barth warns, the Church has also been a "hotch-potch" of error and power. Humans can take the Church in the wrong direction from time-to-time. This is why we do the best we can, why we use all the facilities we have, and why we constantly strive to make the Christian model make sense.

“The subject of dogmatics is the Christian Church.” The subject of dogmatics is what the Christian Church is in the world today. The Christian Church should be living, vital, and meaningful.

If it is not all of these things, then it is not the Christian Church.

Barth on Dogmatics--Commentary 1

Karl Barth begins his “Dogmatics in Outline” by writing, “Dogmatics is a science.”

Whoa! What does he mean by this?

“In every science an object is involved and a sphere of activity. In no science is it a matter of pure theory or pure practice; on the one hand, theory comes in, but also, on the other hand, practice is guided by this theory.”

Perhaps we get all tied up in knots because he uses the term “science” and then attempts to relate dogmatics to the well-known perception of science that we are all familiar with involving experiments and tests and other “hands on” things.

But, he says here that science is not just theory but it is also practice as well. That is, we cannot focus on just one or the other. These two components of a “science” are “combined at the hip” in his view and cannot be separated.

Maybe we have a problem with this comparison because of the time that Barth gave the original lectures, in 1947. At that time, science was considered by many people to be a field of its own, something separate and distinct from theology or the humanities or “soft” stuff. At that time, many believed that a field could be only one or the other and science was the one field that could provide “proofs”.

I believe that the times have changed and what Barth says is more acceptable to more people now than it was way back then. First of all, however, I would change his emphasis on trying to claim that dogmatics is a science. In my view, dogmatics or theology has arisen because of the basic human capacity to solve problems, to make decisions.

In this respect, dogmatics, like physics or chemistry or biology, is an effort by humans to solve more and more difficult problems or to make better decisions. In all of this, humans begin with a question. For example, “Why do apples fall to the ground when they drop from trees?” Or, “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

To answer this, humans build models, formal or information, or other systematic ways of trying to explain what happens. In building these models humans are looking for ways to predict outcomes. They want to predict outcomes so that they can solve a problem or make a decision. Practice or action is in the picture.

Of course, a science like physics can be very abstract, mathematically based, and logically consistent. But, models can be very common place and ordinary. Rules of thumb may result from human model building. Stories or narratives can result from human model building. Models and schema can take all kinds of different forms and still be exceedingly useful to human beings.

When Barth was writing these lectures, the general feeling was that science was abstract, mathematically based, and logically consistent. If a model did not fit this criterion then it was not considered a part of a science.

Now, however, we consider that narratives can be just as helpful to humans in problem solving or decision making as can formal, logically consistent mathematical models. In fact, it is clear that humans use models constructed around stories or narratives far more in their lives than they do these other kinds of models. We know now that the same process is involved in either approach. We give this approach another fancy name: we call this process of model building inductive inference and it is something that people use constantly in all the things they are doing in their lives.

In more formal situations, people can this approach the scientific method. In other situations people just call this problem solving. It is the process a question is ask, information that is hopefully relevant is collected, and then an effort is made to induce, from the information, so kind of model that can make predictions. The model is then used to make forecasts in specific situations. If the model builder does not feel very confident about the model at this point, more information can be collected. Then an action is taken, given the model.

The final step in this iteration of the process is to compare the predictions the model has produced with the outcome of the action. If the outcome is relatively close to the predictions, then the model-builder will go ahead and use the model again in the future. If the outcome is significantly different from the prediction then the model-builder will make alterations to the model so that a better forecast can be forthcoming next time the model is used.

This process is continued, iteration after iteration, until the model ceases to be useful or until other questions are asked. Then the model-building process begins again.

The crucial thing is that this process of inductive inference is a normal human process that has been a major part of the evolution of the species. Human’s problem solving capabilities separate this species from all the others. These capabilities apply to physics and to dogmatics. Therefore, what Barth claims for dogmatics, I believe, is true.

There are other parts to what Barth writes, however. For one, the models human beings construct are fallible. “No act of man can claim to be more than an attempt (at comprehension and exposition, at investigation and instruction), not even science.”

And, Barth states that “By describing it as an attempt, we are simply stating its nature as preliminary and limited.” He goes on: “we are under no illusion that anything man can do can ever be an undertaking of supreme wisdom and final art.”

“Christian dogmatics is an attempt—an attempt to understand and an attempt to expound, an attempt to see, to hear, and to state definite facts, to survey and co-ordinate these facts, to present them in the form of a doctrine (a model).”

Our models are incomplete and fallible…in physics, in economics, in theology, in whatever. The test of our models is practice…we must act using the predictions or forecasts we derive from our models. Theory, just believing in your model is in not enough. This is the “pure theory” that Barth talks about “on the one hand.”

The models must allow us to solve more and more difficult or make better decisions. The models must be put into practice “on the other hand.” Theory (dogma) is not useful unless it works in practice, but practice without theory (dogma) is meaningless. The final test of the model and the theory is whether or not it works when one acts on it.

David Tracy, the Roman Catholic theologian, defines a model as relatively adequate when it is logically consistent and can predict at least as well an any other logically consistent model that is relevant for the situation at hand. Our dogmatics must be relatively adequate.

Theology, dogmatics, is a human activity. In this respect it is like physics and chemistry and biology. Barth then concludes, “So by dogmatics we understand this twofold activity of investigation and doctrine in relation to an object and a sphere of activity.” Barth continues by defining the object of dogmatics and the sphere of activity. A discussion of this will follow.