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Barth’s Doctrine of Analogy of Faith

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The Principle of Analogy in Protestant and Catholic Theology

Abstract

Karl Barth is the most genial prolific and influential Protestant theologian of our time. In the history of his thought there are two decisive turning points. The first is the abandonment of liberalism in favor of a dialectical method which draws upon the infinite qualitative difference between time and eternity;1 the second is the abandonment of the method of dialectic in favor of the method of analogy.2 The first conversion is documented by Römerbrief.3 In this revolutionary book Barth reasserts the transcendent and sovereign character of the God of the Bible. For a century the liberal school had emphasized the immanent character of God by relating religion to the other aspects of human life and thought, to reconcile religion with science, and to show the universal harmony between human mind and divine spirit. As a student of Harnack, Barth had also embraced and defended the principles of the liberal school for several years. But with the Römerbrief he gave the signal for revolt. With warlike temper he attacked the rationalism, humanism and liberalism that had invaded Protestant theology and brought to light again the unique and paradoxical character of Biblical faith.

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References

  1. For liberal Protestantism in general and for Ritschl in particular religion is born of the effort of the human spirit to find the harmony between the world of nature and the inner world of personality. “In every religion what is sought, with the help of the superhuman spiritual power reverenced by man, is a solution of the contradiction in which man finds himself, as both a part of the world of nature and a spiritual personality claiming to dominate nature.” (A. Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, English Translation, II, p. 199). Barth himself declares that the “infinite qualitative difference is his central theme’ ‘, that characterizes his first conversion. See II Roemerbrief p. xiii.

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  2. In Church Dogmatics (2/1, p. 225) Barth declares that analogy is “unavoidable.” This view was already announced in the Fides Quaerens Intellectum, which is the document of his second conversion. Barth himself writes in “Parergon” that the document of his second conversion is not his famous Nein to Brunner but the unpopular Fides quarens Intellectum “das ich mit der grössten Liebe geschrieben zu haben meine, und das... am wenigsten gelesen worden ist” (“Parergon,” Evangelische Theologie, 1948, p. 272).

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  3. First edition 1919.

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  4. In Römerbrief Barth does not give a definition of dialectics. He does not define the nature of theological language. Theology and religion are considered “the working capital of sin; its fulcrum; the means by which men are removed from direct union with God and thrust into disunion, that is, into the recognition of their creatureliness” (The Epistle to the Romans, transi. E. G. Hoskyns (London, 1953), p. 248). But the divine-human relation is conceived everywhere dialectically: man is either united or separated and opposed to God; he is not analogous to Him. “The world was originally one with the Creator and men were one with God... (Men) ought not, as creatures, to be some second thing by the side of the Creator. Men ought not to know that they are merely men... When men stretch out their hands and touch the link which binds them to God, when they touch the tree in the midst of the garden, which ought not to be touched, they are by this presumptuous contact separated from Him” (pp. 247–248). For a penetrating study of the dialectical method in Römerbrief see H. U. von Balthasar, Karl Barth: Darstellung und Deutung seiner Theologie (Köln, 1951), pp. 79–93. Balthasar defines dialectic as a method “das seinen Gegenstand in Aussage und Gegenaussage, in einem Sic et Non zu treffen sucht” (p. 80). Balthasar concludes his study of the use of dialectic in theology with the statement that the dialectical method cannot be used because “die blosse Dialektik löst jene Subjekte auf, zwischen denen das theologische Geschehen sich gibt: Gott und die Kreatur: Gottes Aseität löst sich auf in das Ereignis seiner Offenbarung und hebt sich damit selbst auf, während die Kreatur keine Eigenständigkeit Gott gegenüber besitzt, sondern entweder (im Ursprung und Ziel) mit ihm zusammenfällt, oder (in der Sünde) als der reine Widerspruch zu ihm nur das Nichts sein kann” (p. 93). See also H. Bouillard, Karl Barth: Genèse et Evolution de la Théologie Dialectique (Paris, 1957), pp. 29 ff.

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  5. It has generally been maintained that in Römerbrief Barth denies the existence of any analogy between man and God, between theological language and God’s being. See, for example, E. Przywara, Ringen der Gegenwart, II, pp. 553–554; H. Volk, Die Kreaturfassung bei Karl Barth (Würzburg, 1938) pp. 86–97

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  6. E. Brunner, Natur und Gnade: Zum Gespräch mit Karl Barth (Tubingue, 1935), p. 39.

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  7. Bouillard, however, has shown that traces of a doctrine of analogy are already present in Römerbrief. See Bouillard, Karl Barth (Paris, 1957) I, pp. 29–30;II, pp. 197–198.

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  8. Throughout our discussion of Barth’s doctrine of analogy we shall use the term “analogia fidei” to designate Barth’s doctrine of analogy and the term “analogy” to designate Aquinas’ doctrine of analogy. We refuse to call Aquinas’ doctrine analogia entis both because this terminology is foreign to Aquinas and because, as we shall see, the doctrine of analogia entis criticized by Barth has little in common with Aquinas’ doctrine of analogy. For an excellent discussion of the doctrine of analogia entis rejected by Barth see Bouillard, Karl Barth, 3e., pp. 199–217.

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  9. The Knowledge of God and the Service of God (Gifford Lectures 1938), pp. 4–5; see also Church Dogmatics 2/1, pp. 63 ff. and Brunner-Barth, Natural Theology, pp. 73 ff.

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  10. See references in previous note.

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  11. The problem of the relations between philosophy and theology has been dealt with by Barth in the following works: Die Kirchliche Dogmatik, especially 1/2, pp. 815–867, and 3/2, pp. 1–20; Grundfragen, pp. 23–25; Fides Quaerens Intellectum, passim, and Das Wort Gottes und die Theologie. A knowledge of Barth’s doctrine on the relation between philosophy and theology is indispensable for an understanding of his system, because he conceives the relations between faith and reason, natural and supernatural, God and man, human and divine natures in Christ in the same way.

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  12. Church Dogmatics 1/1, p. 11; see also pp. 5, 14, 43, 87–88, 92, 97 etc.

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  13. Church Dogmatics 1/1, p. 56.

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  14. Cf. also Church Dogmatics 1/1, p. 225 and Grundfrage, pp. 23 ff. Barth refuses to interpret the divine-human relation either in terms of correlation or in terms of continuity. Both Tillich’s and Schleiermacher’s principles do violence to God’s transcendence.

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  15. The category, form-content, is one of the central categories of Barth’s thought. It is already present in the essay “Die Kirche und die Kultur” (1926), where Barth says that the Church must always take an exterior cultural aspect: “the Kingdom of God is in the regnum naturae.” As the Church must take an exterior cultural aspect, theology must take some philosophical form. This is shown by Barth in the essay “Schicksal und Idee der Theologie” (1929). Philosophy lives within theology, as the Church lives within the “Aussenseite” of culture. Theology cannot develop except within some type of philosophy. The category, form-content, has universal application in Barth’s system; it is used to explain the relation between faith and reason (cf. Church Dogmatics 1/1, pp. 201, 208–209); the relation between divine and human natures in Christ (cf. Church Dogmatics 1/2, pp. 132 ff.); the relation between creation and revelation (cf. Kirchliche Dogmatik 3/1, pp. 267 ff.).

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  16. Prolegomena, p. 404. It is in this context that Barth says that also Luther and Calvin have their philosophy. Both were Platonists. Luther was more Neo-Platonist and Calvin more Old-Platonist. It is an illusion to expect to save theology by fighting against this or that philosophy. Platonism did not prevent Augustine from being a good theologian, as Aristotelianism did not hinder Aquinas. With the same presuppositions one can be a good or a bad theologian. A philosophy is dangerous not because it is philosophy, or because it is this or that philosophy. It is dangerous because a theologian may forget the relativity of the factors that determine his knowledge of the Word (cf. Ibid. pp. 404–406). Philosophical forms are so indifferent to the theological content that the same theologian may use different philosophical forms in order to express the same theological content. In Grundfrage he refers to his Römerbrief and Kirchliche Dogmatik as an example of two different philosophical forms for the same theological content (p. 24).

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  17. Cf. Kirchliche Dogmatik 1/2 pp. 815–825; Grundfragen, pp. 23–25; Das Wort Gottes und die Theologie, pp. 000.

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  18. Church Dogmatics 2/1, pp. 224–225; cf. also 223.

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  19. Ibid. p. 226.

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  20. Ibid. pp. 226–227.

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  21. Cf. for instance, Church Dogmatics 1/1 pp. 152–153, where both reasoning by analogy and analogy as a form of illustration are used.

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  22. Cf. Church Dogmatics 2/1, p. 234; 238 ff.

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  23. Cf. Kirchliche Dogmatik 3/1, pp. 219–220; 3/2, p. 262.

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  24. Kirchliche Dogmatik 2/1, pp. 267 ff.

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  25. Church Dogmatics 2/1, p. 234.

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  26. Church Dogmatics 2/1, p. 238.

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  27. Ibid.

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  28. Church Dogmatics 2/1, pp. 238–241.

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  29. Church Dogmatics 1/1, sect. 3, pp. 51–98.

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  30. Cf. Church Dogmatics 1/1, p. 150; 2/1 pp. 227 & 231.

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  31. See infra p. 158.

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  32. See The Knowledge of God and the Service of God, pp. 8–9.

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  33. Church Dogmatics 2/1, p. 232.

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  34. Church Dogmatics 2/1, pp. 228–229; c. 1 /1 p. 157. There is some confusion in this argument. It seems to us that the confusion is due to the overlapping of two arguments. One argument shows that human language is analogous to God’s language, because it is an imitation of the latter: the word “father” is an imitation of the word “Father”. The other argument shows that there is analogy between human language and divine language because God, as the Creator of human language, remains the Lord of human language and may command, and has actually commanded, to man to use his language for God.

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  35. Church Dogmatics 1/1, p. 153.

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  36. Church Dogmatics 1/1, p. 157.

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  37. Church Dogmatics 1/1, pp. 53–54.

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  38. Church Dogmatics 1/1 pp. 186–187.

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  39. Church Dogmatics 1/1 p. 188.

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  40. Church Dogmatics 1/1 pp. 466 ff.

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  41. Church Dogmatics 1/1 p. 159.

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  42. Church Dogmatics 1/1 p. 201.

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  43. Supra p. 150, note 4.

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  44. See, for example, Kirchliche Dogmatik 1/1, p. 116 ff.; 1/2, pp. 166–167, 587 ff. For a more exhaustive analysis of this point see Bouillard, Karl Barth II, pp. 121 ff.

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  45. Cf. Church Dogmatics 1/1 sect. 5: “The nature of the Word of God”; sect. 6: “The Know-ability of the Word of God”; 2/1, sect. 26: “The knowability of God.”

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  46. See The Knowledge of God and the Service of God, pp. 4–5; Church Dogmatics 2/1 pp. 63 ff.; Brunner-Barth, Natural Theology, pp. 73 ff.

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  47. Church Dogmatics 1/1, p. 224; 2/1 p. 69.

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  48. See also Church Dogmatics 2/1 pp. 77–78.

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  49. Cf. J. M. Vacant, Etudes Théologiques sur les Constitutions du Concile Vatican, pp. 309 ff.; Balthasar, K. Barth, pp. 314 ff.

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  50. Church Dogmatics 2/1, p. 79.

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  51. Cf. for example, Church Dogmatics 2/1, p. 83.

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  52. Aquinas does not believe that a double knowledge of God disrupts His unity, because the twofold knowledge or truth does not take place on the part of God Himself “Who is truth one and simple, but from the point of view of our knowledge, which is variously related to the knowledge of divine things” (Aquinas, Summa contra Gentes, I, 9 in prin.).

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  53. Church Dogmatics 2/1, p. 223.

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  54. Church Dogmatics 2/1, p. 63.

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  55. Ibid., p. 65.

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  56. Ibid. pp. 65–66. A restatement of this argument is found also in Section 27 (on the limits of the knowledge of God). Here Barth argues from the principle “God is known only by God” to conclude that a possibility of man’s knowledge of God is conceivable only “as a participation in the truth of God by God Himself in grace.” Although I have no difficulty to accept Barth’s conclusion if he is willing to include also creation in his category of grace, I have some difficulty to understand Barth’s principle that “God is known only by God” if the principle means that God alone can know Himself. This is in fact a proposition formulated by Barth about God and not enunciated by God about Himself. Now the proposition “God alone can know Himself” is either true or false. If it is false, somebody else besides God knows Him. If it is true, there is at least another being besides God, namely Karl Barth, that knows something about God. In both cases Barth’s principle breaks down. The principle stands only if it is understood to mean that God can be known only by God’s grace. But, again, if grace means any sort of divine operation (creation, revelation, redemption etc.) the principle does not say anything startling: it is merely a brief formulation of the principle of God’s universal causality, with a special reference to man’s knowledge of God.

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  57. Church Dogmatics 1/1, p. 158.

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  58. Ibid.

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  59. Ibid.

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  60. See Church Dogmatics 1/1, pp. 184 ff.; 200, 236, 276–277; 2/1, pp. 16–17.

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  61. Our analysis of Barth’s semantics and epistemology of analogy shows that although he formulates the problem of analogy in exactly the same way as Aquinas, i.e., as the problem of the predication of divine names, he constantly shifts the discussion into something different, namely into the problem of obtaining true concepts of God. There is, then, a fundamental difference between Barth’s doctrine of analogia fidei and Aquinas’ doctrine of analogy. Analogiafidei deals with the problem of true representations of God and His perfections; it asks the question: “How can we have a true representation of God’s justice, goodness, etc.?” Analogy deals with the problem of true judgments about God and His perfections; it asks the question: “How can the names “goodness,” “justice,” etc., be predicated of God?” Aquinas believes that man can only know true judgments about God and maintains that man can never conceive adequate representations of God and His perfections. See Bouillard, Karl Barth, III, pp. 208 ff.

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  62. Kirchliche Dogmatik 3/1, pp. 216–217.

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  63. Ibid. pp. 217–218.

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  64. Ibid. p. 207.

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  65. Ibid. p. 219. Barth insists mainly on the I-Thou of the marital (husband-wife) relationship.

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  66. Ibid. p. 220.

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  67. Ibid. p. 207. Barth finds confirmation for his interpretation of the image of God in Gen. 1,27: “God... as man and woman created them.” God did not simply create man, but created him as a social being. Sociability is the most essential characteristic of human nature, since everything else is to be understood in the light of this fact. “Die Menschen sind Mann und Frau und nur das: alles Andere nur in dieser Unterscheidung und Beziehung” (p. 209).

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  68. Ibid. p. 220.

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  69. Kirchliche Dogmatik 3/2, p. 261; see also pp. 260–262.

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  70. Ibid. pp. 259–261. On p. 261 Barth says that inasmuch as Christ’s humanity is only an image of God it is already clear that it cannot be directly but only indirectly identical with God.

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  71. Ibid. p. 266.

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  72. Ibid. pp. 262, 272, 290.

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  73. Analogy of relation is frequently called analogy of action (analogia actionis) and analogy of faith (analogia fidei).

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  74. C. Kirchliche Dogmatik 3/1, p. 220; 3/2, 262; 3/3, pp. 57–59, 490–492, 515–516 etc.; Church Dogmatics 1/1, p. x, 273–274.

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  75. C. Kirchliche Dogmatik 1/1, pp. 40, 175, 180, 252, 262, 459–460; 1/2, pp. 41, 48, 158, 262; 2/1 pp. 90, 349, 654ff.; 3/1, pp. 206 ff., 219, 262, 390 ff.; 3/2, pp. 115 ff.; 3/3, pp. 57–59; 490–492; 515–516 etc.

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  76. Church Dogmatics 1/1, p. x.

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  77. See Kirchliche Dogmatik 1/1, pp. 459–460; 2/2, pp. 588 ff.; 3/1, pp. 206 ff, 390 ff; 3/2, pp. 115 ff. Barth firmly rejects a doctrine of analogia entis, that conceives being as a genus, because “es gabe also Zwischen Schöpfer und Geschöpf eine analogia entis und insofern einen Oberbegriff, einen Generalnenner, ein genus “Sein,” das beide, Gott und sein Geschöpf, umfasst.” (3/3, p. 116). See also 1/1, p. 252; 2/1, pp. 272–273, 349. In rejecting a doctrine of analogia entis that conceives being as a genus, Barth is not opposing Aquinas, as he believes that he is doing, rather he does exactly what Aquinas does when he condemns the analogia duorum ad unum. See supra pp. 10 ff. This point is well brought out by Bouillard, Karl Barth, III, pp. 205 ff.

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  78. See references in the previous note.

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  79. Analogiafidei is also called analogia gratiae (Kirchliche Dogmatik 2/1, p. 275) and analogia revelationis (Kirchliche Dogmatik 3/3, p. 59).

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  80. See Kirchliche Dogmatik 1/1, pp. 459–460; 1(2, pp. 91–92; 2/2, pp. 588 ff. and 829 ff.; 3/1, pp. 390 ff.

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  81. Bouillard believes that Barth is also right to criticize some recent Catholic and Protestant theologians who have interpreted Aquinas’ doctrine of analogy as an analogia entis. See Bouillard, Karl Barth, III, pp. 205 ff. But I think that it is only by keeping in mind that Barth’s conversion to analogiafidei is born as a reaction against the theological liberalism of the nineteenth century that it is possible to understand much of what he says of the analogia entis.

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  82. Supra, p. 168.

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  83. Cf. E. Przywara: In und Gegen (Norimberga, 1955), p. 278: “Analogia entis” ist Kurzformel für das, was das Vierte Laterankonzil 1215... definierte: dass auch in einem noch so “übernatürlichen” Bereich (wie es hier die Trinitäts-Mystik war) “keine so grosse Ähnlichkeit angemerkt werden könne zwischen Schöpfer und Geschöpf, dass nicht eine jeweils grössere Unähnlichkeit angemerkt werden müsse.” “Analogia entis” sagt so in keiner Weise eine “natürliche Theologie” sondern gilt gerade im spezifisch übernatürlichen und genuinst christlichen Bereich.” Thomists have nothing to object to Barth’s analogiafidei as an interpretation of the divine-human relation in the light of revelation. This is just what Thomists want to say with their doctrine of analogy in dogmatic theology. See also Balthasar, K. Barth, pp. 390 ff.

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  84. This is the important function of the distinction between mode of signification (modus significandi) and perfection signified (perfectio significata), namely to assure the absolute on-tological priority of God over man.

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  85. See In Divinis Nominibus no. 889–890. In a similar way Aquinas calls God supersubstantia (no 83), supersubstantialis (no 14, 28, 661, 991, 993 etc.), superessentialis (no 992), superunus (no 992), superlucens (no 661), etc. According to Aquinas being is not a genus but a transcendental. “Ens not potest habere differentias sicut genus habet. Et ideo ens genus non est sed est de omnibus communiter praedicabile analogice; similiter dicendum est de aliis transcend-entibus” (De Natura Generis, c. 1). See S. Theol. I, 3, 5; In Meta. no. 139, 433, 1966, 2169; De Pot. 3, 16 ad 4; De Ver. 1,1. To being as a transcendental God and man are not related in the same way, but while all creatures are contained in being, being itself is contained in God. “Omnia existentia continentur sub ipso esse communi, non autem Deus, sed magis esse commune continetur sub eius virtute, quia virtus divina plus extenditur quam ipsum esse creatum; et hoc est quod (Dionysius) dicit, quod esse commune est in ipso Deo sicut contentum in continente.” “In Divinis Nominibus, no 659). Cf. In I Sent. 8, 1, 1 ad 4. On Aquinas’ concept of being see A. D. Sertillanges, Saint Thomas d’Aquin (Paris, 1910) I, pp. 176–190

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  86. and J. Maritain, Les Degrés du Savoir (Paris, 1946) pp. 827–843.

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  87. Church Dogmatics 2/1, p. 63 ff.; Kirchl. Dogm. 3/2, 243 ff.

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  88. Aquinas, S. Theol. I, 1, 1; C. Gent. I, 4 & 6.

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  1. Battista Mondin s. x.
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Mondin, B. (1963). Barth’s Doctrine of Analogy of Faith. In: The Principle of Analogy in Protestant and Catholic Theology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-4734-9_7

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