What Makes Barth's thought Dialectical?

Since Bruce McCormack's work on Barth, one should read Barth less as a representative of neo-orthodoxy and more of a modern/orthodox thinker.  Kenneth Oakes recently even sees no problem in calling him orthodox/liberal because of Barth's continual use of the theoretical format he learned from the Neo-Kantians and Wilhelm Herrmann specifically.

McCormack has insisted that Barth was a dialectically critical-realistic (Realdialektik) theologian.  God's existence is the transcendent real that humans come in contact in a dialectically veiled/unveiled revelation with God as both the Object (Sache) and Subject of the matter.  Barth interpreter Paul La Montagne lists 7 points to illustrate what exactly this means:

1. Barth takes God's existence and God's self-revelation for granted.
2. His theology is nonfoundationalist (not anti).
3. His theology is critical and self-critical (This is a KEY point often ignored by Barth's readers).
4. We cannot speak of God, but we refer to God in our theology.
5. Our knowledge of God is mediated and indirect.
6. Our language of God is fallible; it is actualistic witness at its best.
7. Theology as a science is of a hypothetical character.

The Beginning of Historicism: Chladenius & Möser

Johann Martin Chladenius and Justus Möser are two names that one does not hear in many households (especially the ones inhabited by Anglo-Americans).  However, in Beiser's new book on the German Historicist tradition, he makes the claim that these two are the grandfathers of Historicism. This is important because most  begin with Herder.


So what is so significant about both of them?  They both begin to look at history outside of simple confessional history or the history of the elite.  They also notice the importance of context and perspective in viewing the past. Because of their attention to history some may place them outside of the eighteenth century Enlightenment and see them as forerunners of nineteenth century movements.

Möser especially deserves mention here because he rejects Wolffian rationalism for its emphasis on reason and turns to the action and emotions of real historical actors. Chladenius seems to turn away from the relativism and perspectivism that may form from a historicist understanding of history because of his orthodox Lutheranism.  All in all, they are both pioneers in asking critical, modern questions about history.

Barth's Nietzschean View of History

I am half way done with Richard E. Burnett's book Karl Barth's Theological Exegesis.  The main reason I am reading this book is because he spends a fair amount of time describing what Barth's reading style (his hermeneutics) is like.  He does this by seeing Barth's Romans (I and II) as breaking from the hermeneutical tradition of Friedrich Schleiermacher and Wilhelm Dilthey and also the higher criticism of his contemporaries.

The Eureka moment I had is when Burnett pointed out that Barth quotes (in his unpublished preface to Romans) Nietzsche's book The Use and Abuse of History.   Here is the quote (see page 114):

"You may only interpret the past out of the highest power of the present: only in the strongest efforts of your noblest qualities will you divinize what in the past is great, worth knowing and preserving.  Like through like!    Or else you will pull the past down to yourself!  It is the mature and preeminent man who writes history.  He that has not passed through some greater and nobler experience than his contemporaries will be incapable of interpreting the greatness and nobility of the past. The voices of the past speak in oracles; and only the master of the present and the architect of the future can hope to decipher their meaning."

This helps one of my recent points (which is probably not too original) that Barth follows in the genealogy with Nietzsche's and Burckhardt's school of history.  For these three, they held a skeptical view of the progressive reading of history at the end of the nineteenth century, and they wanted a separation between science (its appeal to objective, detachment) and the other disciplines in the humanities.  Following this quote, Barth appeals to Nietzsche in the way the dynamic between the past and present is important for practicing history; thus, their is no detachment with regard to the past.

Prepping for Spring Semester 2013:On History

I have been away from the blogging game for a few months while I wrapped up Chapter 2 of the dissertation.  Here are a few things I have on my agenda for the coming year:

The relationship between what historians call micro-history and macro-history, social-cultural history and just general trends in historiography.  I am assigning some Jared Diamond and then some Robert Darnton/Natalie Zemon Davis/W. E. B. Du Bois to illustrate some of the differences.  Also, attached to this debate is the role of German historicism and its attention to historical hermeneutics.  I definitely have Burnett's book on Barth's early hermeneutics in mind.  German historicism is a subject that is ill defined especially in the English speaking world, so I plan to read what I can on exactly what was at the heart of this movement and where Barth fits in this world (or how he fights against it).  Some of the figures I want to cover are: Droysen, Rickert, Troeltsch, Dilthey, Meinecke, Cassirer, and Heidegger.

I wrote a lot on Deleuze during my early doctoral seminars, and I am looking to create something out of that research since it is not particularly relevant to my dissertation.  I'm thinking about looking at Fernand Braudel's book On History as a catalyst for comparisons (since Deleuze does refer to Braudel from time to time).  My educated hunch would be both have a view that tries not to favor the anthropocentric viewpoint.  Part of the challenge is to teach World Civilizations as less the struggle of important characters and events, but to look at long periods of time to establish why things changed over time and why some things stayed the same.  In order to do this correctly, some argue, is to downplay the human element.  My first step toward this is to lean on the interpretations of Kenneth Pomeranz and Robert Marks and the popular work of Jared Diamond.

To wrap things up, I want to correlate all this stuff on history and ask how does this translate over to my work at my local church or in theological discourse.

The good thing is that I have spaced out my doctoral work to give me more time to potentially write a journal article or two, be better prepared for lectures and enjoy the birth of my second son!!!

Jack Goody on the Other

Some sound advice from anthropologist/historian Jack Goody:

"We need always to be on our guard against the misrepresentation of others, whether of the Oriental other or of the other next door (or even the other in our own house).  The total avoidance of misrepresentation may well be beyond our capacities.  But that is no reason for withdrawing from the task, especially since the process of representing the other will continue, whatever we think or do about it.  School children will be taught history and adults will make judgments about other cultures.  It is surely our task in the Universities and elsewhere (or one of our tasks) to make certain those products and those judgments are the best that it is within our power to make: not to conclude, as some have done, that the way out is to throw up one's hands in despair or to take refuge in the indulgence of frankly fictional or personalized accounts.  That may be a way out; it is no way forward." 

Helpful definitions on Republicanism and Natural Law theory in Rousseau's context

On page 241, Rosenblatt, in her study Rousseau and Geneva, gives a couple of helpful definitions of republicanism and natural law theory.

Republicanism: "The republican tradition is based on the ideas of virtue and community and sees love of one's country and identification with the community as the essential conditions for a just political order.

Natural law theory: "The political doctrine of natural law is based on the notion of self-interest and sees the main role of the State as being the protection of private interests."

The Importance of Rousseau

I am currently working my way through Helena Rosenblatt's study of Rousseau.  I have previously read her essay on the Christian Enlightenment in my studies of the Religious Enlightenment of the eighteenth century.  Here is what I am learning from the book:

1.  Rousseau's social-cultural context of growing up in eighteenth century Geneva is an understudied aspect of his life.  Rosenblatt is following in the footsteps of Skinner and Pocock in emphasizing this context to understand Rousseau better.

2.  The Geneva of Rousseau was one of economic and political turmoil.  There were great changes since the time of Calvin's Geneva.  Even the Reformed theologians preached a more pragmatic message to fit with the changing world.  Moreover, a separation among an oligarchy and the bourgeois was developing, which directly impacted Rousseau's family.  His upbringing brought him to admire the republican virtues of the Western classics over against the cultural admiration of everything French in Geneva.

3.  Things changed for Rousseau when he became a man of letters in France.  This middle period of his life before he wrote his greatest works was the time period when he hung out with the other French philisophes.  He abandons his love of republicanism and Geneva.

4.  Upon writing the First Discourse, Rousseau begins his turn back to being a "citizen of Geneva."  This is also his turn toward sociological interpretation of humanity and his anti-philisophes writings.  Many commentators like Jonathan Israel see a betrayal of Radical Enlightenment principles, yet perhaps it is better stated that Rousseau is trying to attempt a republican renaissance through classic virtues...

More to come...