Barth's Ethics: Week 3

Beginning the 3rd week of my Barth's Ethics seminar. Just finished David Clough's book on Barth's ethics where he argues there is a consistent thread of reading the ethics from Romans II to the Church Dogmatics as an ethics of crisis via dialectics. It is a pretty good read and I think it provided a good ground on where I think I would like to take Barth's thought. This week I begin to read CD III:4 on his ethics of creation.

So what is the aim of this reading?

1. I want to see how Barth's idea of ethics fits with his thoughts on dialectics and his theology of election (Barth's strongest point in my opinion). I like the openness of his ethics so far even thought he betrays this move sometimes. How does an ethic get formed in light of the Event of revelation for Barth?

2. To then see how his ethics fits into the realm of the 4 moves for social-political framework laid out by Ken Surin: 1)politics of identity, 2) politics of subjectivity (Levinas-Derrida), 3) politics of Event (Badiou and Zizek) and 4) politics of multitude (Deleuze and Negri). At this point he is somewhere between 2-3, I would guess, but Negri is a source of intrigue for me lately and I may ultimately use him to critique Barth's position.

3. Does Barth's ethics provide a way to resist the state of exception and biopolitics? I am beginning to read Barth's attack on the 19th century and WW1/WW2 as an attack on a form of biopolitics. If I can find the time to read Agamben along with Barth then I might try to make this connection. Agamben already did this himself by referencing Barth's "live 'as if'". Could Barth then advocate an ethic of Bartelby-"I prefer not to"? Or is his ethics of crisis line up with Zizek's more ethics that acts without a firm foundation of acting?

Identities versus Singularities!

As early as St. Paul, the battle between identities or singularities has been waged. Paul was one of the first to articulate the wiping away of identities (no male/female, slave/free, and Gentile/Jew) for a new community. Early Christian thought always had a communal outlook and basis. Unfortunately, history shows those Christian strands of communities that remained faithful to Paul's ideas to have either been so minor a population as to be ignored or to be totally persecuted. For example, a lot that we know about the 15th century peaceful Anabaptists is written by those that mercilessly persecuted them.

One of the problems brought by the rise of the nation-state and modernity, was of the totality of the so-called organic community. This organic community does away with the real differences that make up the nation but also each person. Translation: These people are the real German "essence" and those are not.

From reading both Negri and Deleuze, one can see how a human person is a singularity in that he/she is made up of a lot more things than simple autonomous, rational thinking subjects. We are interconnected with other singularities. For Negri, this plays out in the way we deal with what he calls the common. Great quote by Negri: "Common is that which enriches the productivity of singularities! Common is the fact that a lot of ideas come to me when you and I talk about something! Common is the fact that if I love you, we invent things together!"

Parte 3: Challenging the Measure of Guilt in Job and Negri

The book of Job is essentially a challenge to unhealthy guilt in that Job withstands the judgments of his so-called theologian friends. For theorist Antonio Negri, the book of Job raises some fundamental philosophical questions. Negri's main goal is to challenge retributive judgment that is based on measure.

Job withstands at least three big ideas: 1) the logic of retribution (best seen in Eliphaz), 2) mystical over-determination and 3) transcendent providence or moralism. In all three methods, Job's friends try to answer back to Job's complaints. They claim that the reason that Job suffers has to do with some meaning: it is either retribution for something Job committed (reward/punishment), a mystery that Job must passively accept, or it is just part of some kind of master plan. In short, there is some underlying meaning, and Job must silently, passively accept that.

However, the surprise of the book is that God does come down for Job to see! Negri makes a great point to say that not even Moses could see God face to face, but here is God before Job the complainer! And as God appears, God basically takes Job's side! I love this fact because it shows that God creates a space for humans to actually complain about the meaninglessness of their suffering.

One of the best parts of the book is where Negri contrasts pain with fear. In one sense, pain brings us into community, it evokes our sympathies and passions and will perhaps produce a free, creative act. On the other hand, fear is dictatorial when it is made a realist foundation that silences humans for the sake of security. Negri is right on in that it is the best part of the human being to feel empathy and become angry when we see pain; it arouses our conscience to finally act and regard someone as a fellow human brother/sister.

Negri's final point from Job is to say that the Church has often taken the position of one of Job's interlocutors than standing with those that suffer (unlike Christ, right?). One of the lessons to learn is to look to act when we experience pain with another than to look for some kind of retributive key behind someone's pain. Again, I always reread the book of Job by saying what if Job's friends go to visit him, cry with him and then the book ends.

Part Dos: Not Guilty! Reading Job in Prison

One of the most poignant comments from the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer as he contemplated life in a Nazi prison for being an accomplice to an assassination plot to kill Hitler is when he says that he loves the Psalms; he read them daily. In addition, more importantly, he also notes that he read Job and that it obviously touched him deeply considering his present condition.

The idea of reading a Psalm a day as a devotional is something I have heard all my life. There are a plethora of commentaries and devotionals written to do such a thing. There is even an addition of the New Testament that charitably includes the Psalms in the back right behind Revelation (because everyone knows that's all a Christian really needs-FAIL).

I honestly think that Christians might be better served reading a daily dose of Job. A number of thinkers have brought out how crucial this book is. I will be looking for the next week on a number of interpretations on Job that I think will help us with our understanding of guilt.

One book I just started is Negri's book The Labor of Job. Like Bonhoeffer, Negri turned to Job as he spent years in an Italian prison for being a subversive toward the Italian government. In that situation, he writes about how Job helped him reformulate his own positions in life. Moreover, like Bonhoeffer, Negri found in a Job a model for someone who is condemned as guilty by his peers even though he stands by his innocence. In fact, he aggressively proclaims his innocence toward his theologian friends and even in the presence of God just like Bonhoeffer and Negri did against the powers that be.

Perhaps the Psalms are not that far away from Job in that there are a number of Psalms where the Psalmists cries out to God for protection against both verbal and physical violence especially because he speaks from a position of innocence. Did not St. Paul say if God is for us, who can be against us? That we no longer have an accuser because we have an advocate with Christ? I think these words of course ring true about our reconciliation with God in Christ but I would also say that when we are unjustly accused in any facet of life we have the freedom like Job, Bonhoeffer and Negri to say we are innocent!