The Bible is the concrete means by which the Church recollects Godís past revelation, is called to expectation of His future revelation, and is thus summoned and guided to proclamation and empowered for it.
Today is the final installment of Barth’s Threefold view of Scripture. the previews two topics were God’s word Preached and Written. Today we are looking at God’s Word Revealed.
What we have in the Bible are in any case human attempts to repeat and reproduce this Word of God in human words and thoughts and in specific human situations, e.g., with reference to the complications of the political position of Israel as a buffer between Egypt and Babylon, or with reference to the errors and confusions in the Christian Church at Corinth between A.D. 50 and 60.
Barth’s words seem to undercut his initial assertion that the Bible is the revelation of God, but I think his goal here is to emphasize that The Bible is not just a document from the past. The words are based on specific events in history, but what makes them God’s Word is that living breathing act of Divine intervention that goes on even today. In other Words, Barth is arguing against the static view of Bible that limits God to a past reality, and he argues for a dynamic view of reality which recognizes God’s is at work in the Bible for today, and for the future.
These are two different things. And precisely because they are not two things but become one and the same thing in the event of the Word of God, we must maintain that it is by no means self-evident or intrinsically one that revelation should be understood primarily as the superior principle and the Bible primarily as the subordinate principle.
Two different things that are the same.. huh???
When the Bible itself is revelation in this way, it establishes the Church and makes its proclamation necessary and possible. The unity of revelation guarantees the unity of the biblical witness in and in spite of all its multiplicity and even contradictoriness. The unity of the Bible guarantees the unity of the Church in and in spite of the difference in the proportion of faith in which the Bible becomes revelation to this man and that man and to this man and that man to-day and to-morrow. On this basis the unity of the Church guarantees the unity of proclamation.
Barth’s assertion, it would seem, is that the unity of the Bible with all of God’s revelation is the assurance we have that the church exists in unity–even if our unity is not always experienced in our speech or actions. In other words, unity is not based on our own words or actions, but on the word of God and the action of God as revealed in the Bible–specifically the person of Jesus Christ. And if this is what Barth is saying, then I agree with him on this point because the Scripture makes clear that the Holy Spirit is the one who is our unity and our mission is to live in unity, not create it. (for a fuller discussion of unity see this post HERE and these books HERE and HERE.)
And we have said the same of the Bible: It must continually become Godís Word. The reference of this ìcontinually,î of course, is not to human experience, as though our reaction to this event or our attitude to it could be constitutive for its reality and content. The reference is to the freedom of Godís Word.
Certainly there is room to misinterpret Barth’s phrase that the Bible must continually “become” God’s Word, but he makes it clear that the “becoming” is not based on human action or human understanding. The Bible is continually becoming God’s Word as God Himself, though the work of the Holy Spirit, makes the Written Word come alive in the world today.
* all quotes from Karl Barth, Geoffrey William Bromiley and Thomas F. Torrance, Church Dogmatics, Volume I The Doctrine of the Word of God, Part 1, Translation of Die kirchliche Dogmatik.; Each pt. also has special t.p.; Includes indexes., 2d ed., 113-120 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2004).
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I wonder if your confusion is partly because you’re using the vocabulary of the Word of God differently to Barth. I’m not claiming to fully understand Barth (wiser people than I have tried and failed), or even to have read all of him, but I wonder if what he says about the Trinity, comes in here.
For Barth, God’s revelation IS God himself, and so God’s Word IS God himself. Barth’s unhappy with the idea of God existing in the world and accessible at any time, and so wants to see moments of revelation as discrete points of contact – he describes at as being like the point where a straight line touches a circle as it goes by on a tangent (who would’ve though maths was useful for theology?). So the Bible has records of people’s encounter with the Word of God, and can become for us the point where we encounter the Word, but it isn’t in and of itself the Word of God because that would imply that God himself was pinned down in a Bible like a dog on a chain, which doesn’t sit very comfortably a vision of and absolutely free and transcendent God. Does that make any sense/sound like it’s relevant to what you were saying? I’ve blogged here and hereabout what he says about the Trinity, in case it’s useful.
That is a great summary. It crystalizes many of my disorganized thoughts. My only difference, I think, with what Barth is saying is that I would consider the answer to be a BOTH/AND… the Word is BOTH the written text AND the Living God who still speaks today. What I love thought about Barth’s emphasis is that he pushes against the notion that reduces God to nothing more than some words on a page or actions that existed only in the past.
I will check out your stuff on Trinity.