Much Ado about Nothing: Karl Barth's Being Unable to Do Nothing about Nothingness

17 Pages·2002·0.09 MB·English

InternationalJournalofSystematicTheology Volume4 Number3 November2002
Much Ado about Nothing: Karl Barth’s
Being Unable to Do Nothing about
Nothingness
JOHN C. McDOWELL*
Abstract: Often a source of concern to commentators about the adequacy of
Barth’stheology ishis treatment ofevil, in particularChurchDogmatics III/3
§50 with its depiction of evil as das Nichtige (the nothingness). Against the
impressionthatBarthhaslittletimeinhissystematictheologyfordoingjustice
to evil it is worth attempting a reading that indicates the importance of this
sectionandwhatitseemsthatBarthisdoingwithit.DasNichtigebelongstoa
conflictualanddramaticaccount,andtalkofits,forBarth,‘absurd’‘existence’
belongs there. The dramatic flavour of this discussion further impresses that
thereismoretobesaidabout‘Barthonevil’thananyfocusontheparadoxical
and negative language used to depict it could express – this ‘more’ should
come specifically through ethics.
The theological microcosm of Church Dogmatics §50 is highly suggestive of, but
notonlyof,whatBarth‘doeswithevil’.Thecontentionofthereadinggivenbythis
article is that these reflections on evil constitute notable steps that enable one to
read volume IV,and particularlythe fragments ofwhatwouldhave been IV/4had
Barth lived to complete them, as, in some sense, §50’s detailing and dramatized
expression.1 As such, Barth’s much misunderstood and maligned negative and
paradoxical depictions of evil need to be read as expressions disabling any simple
systematic theologizing of evil. Put starkly, das Nichtige cannot and should not be
theologically systematized since it is disruptive of grand theological schemes, and
can best be portrayed through this form of ‘mythopoetic’ discourse within the
Christian grammar of God’s-being-for-the-world-in-Christ.2
* NewCollege, MoundPlace, Edinburgh EH1 2LX,Scotland, UK.
1 SeeCDIII/3,p.xii.ProblematicisHansSchwarz’sconcentratingexclusivelyon§50in
Evil:AHistoricalandTheologicalPerspective,trans.MarkW.Worthing(Minneapolis:
FortressPress,1995),pp. 163–8.
2 Ihaveborrowedandadaptedtheterm‘mythopoetic’fromRosemaryRadfordRuether,
‘The Left Hand of God in the Theology of Karl Barth: Karl Barth as a Mythopoetic
Theologian’, Journal of Religious Thought25(1968–9),pp. 3–26.
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320 John C. McDowell
Undoing contextless theodicy
Composed in the aftermath of the physical, diplomatic and psychological ruins of
post-war Europe, CD III will nevertheless disappoint anyone expecting Barth’s
commentary on, or even explicit theological response to, the cultural landscape.
Frequently critics despair of the foolishness and irresponsibility of a writer whose
mention of the Jews is primarily that of the Gotteskranken (God-sick),3 whose
theologicalaccountofwomenapatriarchalhangover,4andhisdelvingintopolitics
(especially those of the Cold War) laughably uninformed and arbitrary.5
Furthermore,recalledisthefactthatBarth’sresponseto1914wastoaskquestions
ofhisLiberalteachers’theology.HasthetheologianwhoclaimedtoholdtheBible
inonehandandthenewspaperintheotherextendedhisarmstotheirfullspan,thus
preventing their meeting?
Suggestive of something more culturally significant is Pattison’s general
observation that ‘concern with the void’ is regarded by ‘a considerable body of
opinion’ as having been a product of the general angst-ridden mood and therefore
quicklydismissable(tooquickly dismissableinanygenealogicalcritique) asbeing
‘somewhatpasse´’.6Indeed,whatCDIIIrepresentsisaverydifferentstyleofpost-
warexplosionfromthatofthe1922editionofDerRo¨merbrief.Speculationonthe
different impacts of the two periods on this Barth of 1922 and that of 1945 (CD
III/1) is tempting, particularly since the latter Barth had, through bitter experience
and the way he came to read the Scriptures, come to expect less of people and
movements. 1917’s Red-Revolution had affected him deeply. It is somewhat
simplistic to complain, then, asHorton does, that Barth was not as good a prophet
to the post-Second World War age of anxiety as he was to the age of over-
3 See, e.g., Eugene F. Rogers, Sexuality and the Christian Body (Oxford: Blackwell,
1999),chs.6and7;MarquardtcitedinKatherineSonderegger,ThatJesusWasBorna
Jew: Karl Barth’s ‘Doctrine of Israel’ (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State
UniversityPress,1992),p.146.In1949BarthexplainedthecontinuedgraceofGodto
theJews,anddeclaredthattheJew‘isthemirrorinwhichweseeourselvesasweare,
i.e. we see how bad we all are’. Karl Barth, Against the Stream: Shorter Post-War
Writings,ed. Ronald Gregor Smith (London: SCMPress,1954),p. 198.
4 Assessmentsdifferastowhetherthiswasacorrectable‘lapse’intoculturalpatriarchy,
orrathera‘necessary’productofan‘irredeemable’theology.See,forexample,Graham
Ward, ‘The Erotics of Redemption – After Karl Barth’, Theology and Sexuality 8
(1998), pp. 52–72; Rogers, Sexuality and the Christian Body, chs. 6 and 8; Katherine
Sonderegger,‘BarthandFeminism’,inJohnWebster,ed.,TheCambridgeCompanion
toKarlBarth(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,2000),pp.258–73;Rosemary
Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk: Towards a Feminist Theology (Boston:
Beacon, 1983),p. 98.
5 SeeReinholdNiebuhr,EssaysinAppliedChristianity(NewYork:MeridianLivingAge
Books,1959),pp.184,186;RobinW.Lovin,ChristianFaithandPublicChoices:The
Social Ethics of Barth, Brunner, and Bonhoeffer (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984),
pp.41–2.
6 GeorgePattison,Agnosis:TheologyintheVoid(Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996),p.2.
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Barth on Nothingness 321
confidence which preceded it.7 Through his developing Christology, Barth had
learnedoftheimportanceofChristianhope,thatwhichconsequentlytheologically
underminesthebasisofthisculturaldistressandthereforecreatestheverydifferent
theological mood from that of 1922. So in 1948 he declares:
It iseasy to be afraid anywhere in the world today. The wholeofthe Western
world, the whole of Europe is afraid, afraid of the East. But we must not be
afraid ... Everything is in the hands of God.8
The cultural impact on the Barth of 1947 is most clearly displayed in his
discourse of das Nichtige, suggesting a conversation (an admiringly critical one)
with Heidegger and Sartre (CD III/3, p. 334). Pattison attempts to identify the
function of this language as being to ‘harmonize faith in the goodness and
omnipotence of God and a vision of the world as fallen’.9 This use of the melodic
image, ‘harmonize’, is very interesting. Despite Barth’s best intentions (described
below) Pattison regards him as characterizable by metaphors of euphonics, or
musical harmony.
For the theodicy-task, evil is a ‘problem’ for theorizing to solve. Ears are
trained to hear that the seemingly discordant notes actually offer their own
contribution to the overarching form and structure of the melody, a general
perspective that frequently prevents speculation on how specific instances, and/or
what Marilyn McCord Adams has recently named ‘horrendous evils’ (one should
add ‘pointless’),10 make their contribution. In such, particularly in the ‘greater
good’ theses, discussions of evil’s place in the world tend to utilize language of
‘justification’ and ‘necessity’.11 The existence of a good and all-powerful God, so
some forms of the story go, can be justified in permitting evil to exist since it is
‘necessary’ for the achievement of a ‘greater good’.
7 WalterM.Horton,‘HowBarthHasInfluencedMe’,TheologyToday13(1956),p.359.
8 Barth, Against the Stream,p. 99.
9 Pattison, Agnosis,p. 7.
10 SeeMarilynMcCordAdams,‘HorrendousEvilsandtheGoodnessofGod’,Aristotelian
Society:SupplementaryVolume63(1989),pp.297–310.Wykstrapointsoutthattalkof
waste and meaninglessness is person-specific, and therefore cannot rule out the
possibility that within the divine perspective there are no pointless sufferings. Stephen
Wykstra,‘TheHumeanObstacletoEvidentialArgumentsfromSuffering:OnAvoiding
theEvilsof‘‘Appearance’’’,InternationalJournalforPhilosophyofReligion16(1984),
pp.80–1.This,surely,begsthequestionofwhethertalkofthejustificationofsuffering
is itself not also person-specific, and is ironic in utilizing an argument that Kant had
thought,evenin1791,detestabletohumanmoralsensibilities.ImmanuelKant,‘Onthe
MiscarriageofallPhilosophicalTrialsinTheodicy’,inReligionWithintheBoundaries
ofMereReasonAndOtherWritings,trans.anded.AllenWoodandGeorgeDiGiovanni
(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press,1998),pp.17–30(pp.19–20).
11 Strangely Hebblethwaite declares that ‘The Judaeo-Christian ... sees the problem of
evil first and foremost as involving a demand for explanation and justification’, and
cites Job and Ivan Karamazov. Brian Hebblethwaite, Evil, Suffering and Religion
(London: Sheldon Press, 1976), p. 7. But would an explanation even have been
sufficient forthem?
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322 John C. McDowell
Barthdeniesthepossibilityofconstructing(theengineeringmetaphorisapt)a
‘theodicy’ in this sense. That type of apologetic is not open to the professor who
persistently maintained that apologetics could not be a rationally performed task
separablefromdogmaticdescription.Hesawapologetics,asperformedby‘natural
theology’, as seeking to construct a ‘Being’ (or Ultimate ‘Thing’) from the
fragments of our misplaced reasoning from first principles (foundations), a Being
that can be no-God.
HereiswhereBarthisfrequentlymisunderstood,andSchulweis’commenton
‘theodicy[as]...asymptomofman’senslavementtomoralandlogicalcriteriaand
norms irrelevant to the conduct of the divinely unique One’, could accentuate
common suspicion of Barthian anti-intellectualism and irrationalism.12 Rather, the
task Barth believes himself able to perform in honesty is something contextually
Christian outside ofthe framework of which we create distorted images,and even
idols, mistaking them for the living God. Barth was famously fond not only of
Kant’s critique of metaphysics as impossible for pure reason but also Feuerbach’s
critique of religion.
Something similar permeates his discussions in §50 with regard to evil- and
sin-talk.They,andalsodiscourseof‘goodness’and‘omnipotence’,then,cannotbe
abstracted from their proper theological grammar without serious distortion of
meaning (see, e.g., CD III/3, pp. 350–1, 365–6), even suggesting something is
wrong with appeals to ‘commonsense notions of evil’.13
In proceeding to rigorously ‘examine’ or give a ‘report’, if such a static
metaphor maybeused,thenature ofsintheologically (orrather christologically, or
betterstill,trinitarianly)Barthmayprovideadescriptionthatoverlapswith,andcan
evendrawfrom,certainthemesoftheodicy-projectsanalogically(CDIII/3,p.295).
Exploring the nature of sin and evil, that which is declared to be a problem before
God(and notGodaproblem before it),14may well lead to certain clarifications of
thesortsofwaysinwhichitisappropriateandinappropriate tospeakofGod’sand
creation’s relations toevil. Hick,however,demonstrates afailure tounderstand the
factthatthisisverydifferentfromsystematically‘strain[ing]aftercompletenessand
compactness’ concerning evil (CD III/3, p. 295), and that done non-theologically,
12 H.M.Schulweis,‘KarlBarth’sJob’,JewishPhilosophicalQuarterlyReview 65(1975),
pp.156–67(p.157).
13 MichaelL.Peterson,GodandEvil: AnIntroductiontotheIssues(Boulder:Westview
Press,1998),p. 10. JohnWebster, Barth’sMoralTheology: HumanAction in Barth’s
Thought(Edinburgh:T.&T.Clark,1998),p.69:‘Barth’sChristologicaldetermination
ofsinisnotsomuchanattempttodislocate‘‘theological’’from‘‘empirical’’reality,as
an argument born of a sense that human persons are characteristically self-deceived.’
Theologically speaking, Webster’s second sub-clause inverts Barth’s move – Barth’s
‘Christological determination of sin is ... an argument born of a sense that’ God’s
commercewiththeworld,andinitslightwhathumanbeingis,hasbeendisclosedinthe
personof Jesus(see CDIV/2,p.387).
14 Schulweis’ claim about Barth’s anthropo-dicy rather than theo-dicy (since humanity
needs justification) requires qualification lest it be associated with an inversion of
theodical strategies.
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Barth on Nothingness 323
whenheclaimsthatBarth’sdiscourseondasNichtigeis‘aninfringementofhisban
upon speculative theorizing, and from outside that thought world’.15
To return to the musicology metaphor, it would appear more appropriate to
arguethatBarth’stheologicalcompositionallowsforthediscordantnotes(sin,evil
andsuffering)tobeheardafterafashion(butitisthenatureofthis‘afterafashion’
that is highly controversial), and yet these are notes that are themselves, while not
simply reducible into the melody, drawn upon symphonically to complexify the
piece: ‘the break itself and as such will be reproduced and reflected in our
knowledge and its presentation’ (CD III/3, p. 295).
To change the metaphor, it is not that Barth objects to the use of words to
describe evil, but rather to the pseudo-scientific grammar of theodicies – in other
words, their comprehensive explanatoriness.
The unjustifiability of (un)resident evil
Divine conflict: the evilness of evil
When Donald MacKinnon claims that Paul ‘writes not as if he would provide a
solution, but rather as if he would lay the texture of a problem bare’ he displays
somethingofhisownwayofdoingtheology.16Itisinthislayingbare,orforBarth
in the provision of a report, that the exposure of tragic particularities and
unsystematizable ambiguities of ‘reading’ the world prevent MacKinnon from
voicing any easy talk of ‘a synthesis in which reconciliation’ is achieved.
Barth’s own complaints about theodicy-projects, as he perceived and knew
them, are contentful also. The focus issimilarly on the manner of resolution, or at
least toleration, of the relation between ‘Creator, creature and their co-existence,
and the intrusion upon them of the undeniable reality of nothingness’ (CD III/3,
p.365).Barthistrinitarianly compelled todevelopadoctrine ofGodasbeing-for-
creationinsuchawaythatthe‘humanityofGod’entailsthattheeventofthecross
is not a moment of pathos, something episodic against which MacKinnon also
complains, within an otherwise impassible Godhead.17 Instead, in Barth’s post-
Second World War sense of the self-determined ‘humanity of God’, this cross of
theOneraisedispreciselywhereGodismostidentifiableasbeingGod(andwhere
sin is displayed) as an-involved-being-for-the-other, something which kenotic
language of ‘giving-up’ cannot fully do justice to.18 Or, as MacKinnon puts it,
15 J.Hick,EvilandtheGodofLove,2ndedn.(Basingstoke:Macmillan,1977),pp.135–6.
16 D.M. MacKinnon, Borderlands of Theology And Other Essays (London: Lutterworth,
1968), p.156.
17 D.M. MacKinnon, Themes in Theology: The Three-Fold Cord (Edinburgh: T. & T.
Clark, 1987),p. 232.
18 Similarly even Moltmann’s more subtle divine passibilism slips when claiming a
‘divineself-emptyinglove[inwhich]theSonofGodabandonedhisdivineidentity’in
the godforsakenness of the cross.The citation isfrom Richard Bauckham, Moltmann:
Messianic Theology in the Making (Basingstoke: Marshall Morgan & Scott, 1987), p.
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324 John C. McDowell
kenosis ‘is not strange or alien to His being’,19 but rather, he continues in
incarnationallyrevisingthesenseofdivineomnipotence,God’s‘supremeassertion
in the setting of a deeply estranged world’.20
Barth’s move is less the simplistic claim that theodicy, by being in its very
nature formed-reflection, trivializes suffering21 and more a theological complaint
that its precise manner of understanding the place of evil in the world is
domesticating. Hence it is the intolerability of das Nichtige that is §50’s main
concern,something which theodicy isindanger oflosing. §50opens,forinstance,
withthestrikingstatementthat‘ThereisoppositionandresistancetoGod’sworld-
dominion’ (CD III/3, p. 289). Consequently, Barth rejects theodicies in which evil
and sin are worked into the whole system (either dualistically as necessary
antitheses,ormonisticallyinordertocontributetothegood),andthereinentailthat
these become necessary and/or even good (CD IV/1, pp. 374–87). Specifically he
rejects Schopenhauerian pessimism (CD III/1, pp. 335ff.); and anti-dualistic
differentiations between das Nichtige and creation’s Schattenseitte (see CD III/3,
pp.296ff.).Moreover,hehesitatestodiscussdemonologyinviewofthetemptation
to fit Satan into a legitimate and proper place within creation. These various
perspectives subtly conceal ‘genuine nothingness’ and fabricate ‘a kind of alibi
undercoverofwhichitcannotberecognizedandcanthuspursueitsdangerousand
disruptive ways the more unfeared and unhampered’ (CD III/3, p. 299).
ItistheradicalnessandruthlessnessofdasNichtige,orinRuether’swords‘the
evilness of evil’, that Barth wants to assert and refuse any possible domestication
and justification of.22 This Barth tends to emphasize in three main ways: by
utilizing metaphors of conflict; by acknowledging it as atopos (homeless) with
regard to both Creator and creature; and, by conceiving its threateningness.
Bounded conflict
Given the kind of talk of God as free-to-love, whose electing and creating for
purposesofcovenantfellowshipingrace,andwhoseparticipationinthelifeofhis
creature culminated in the cross, that which Barth had already exposed the
70,myemphasis;cf.Ju¨rgenMoltmann,TheCrucifiedGod:TheCrossofChristasthe
FoundationandCriticismofChristianTheology,trans.R.A.WilsonandJohnBowden
(London: SCM Press, 1974, pp. 25ff.). However, Moltmann’s notion that the cross is
indicative ofthetriune relationality ismore tothepoint.See,e.g,JewishMonotheism
and Christian Doctrine: A Dialogue between Pinchas Lapide and Ju¨rgen Moltmann,
trans. L.Swidler (Philadelphia: FortressPress,1981),p. 54.
19 MacKinnon, Themesin Theology, p.235.
20 MacKinnon, Themesin Theology, p.155.
21 Some examples of this particular complaint are D.M. MacKinnon, The Problem of
Metaphysics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), p. 169; David Tracy,
‘Saving From Evil: Salvation and Evil Today’, in The Fascination of Evil, eds.
HermannHa¨ringandDavidTracy,Concilium1998/1(London:SCMPress,1998),pp.
107–16(p.114).
22 Ruether, ‘The Left Handof God’,p. 6; cf. CDIII/3, p. 299.
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Barth on Nothingness 325
christological grammar to even before II/2, it is unsurprising that Winston can
commentthatforBarth‘ToknowtherealGodistoknowHimastheadversaryof
evil.’23 Das Nichtige, then, is portrayed as ‘an alien factor’ (CD III/3, p. 289), ‘a
real enemy’ and ‘adversary with whom no compromise is possible’ (CD III/3, pp.
301, 302). As antithetical and abhorrent to God, and thereby to ‘the totality of the
created world’ (CD III/3, p. 302), therefore, it is inappropriate to speak of a
causalitas mali in Deo.
This conflict had its origin ‘before’ (understood logically rather than simply
temporally) creation, with the separation of creation and nothingness, and preser-
vation of the former ‘from being overthrown by the greater force of nothingness’
(CD III/3, p. 290). Creation is preserved from falling into ‘total peril’, or into
suffering the ultimate consequences of being able ‘to overwhelm and destroy the
creature’ (destroy absolutely, it must be added for comprehension) (CD III/3, p.
290). The de-creativeness of das Nichtige is always bounded, and therefore theo-
dramaticallylimitedinitsscope,byGod’screativenessand,indeed,redemptivere-
creativeness (IV/3 is a good exploration of the nature of the ongoing drama of the
risen Christ with the many ways that das Nichtige is manifested in the world).
A good grammar of creatureliness
According to von Balthasar, the dying sinless Jesus
proves thereby that sin is so much a part of existence that sinlessness cannot
maintainitselfinit.Buthealsoprovesthatsinisnotanecessaryandinherent
characteristicoflife.EvilisnotapartofGod,noryetapartofessentialman.24
Importantinthisconflictualaccount,then,isthattheologicallyGod’screating
iswhollybeneficenttocreatures,andtheresultofthatcreatingiswhollygood(CD
III/3, p. 302), something which Barth found so striking in Mozart’s witness to
creation’s praising of its Creator (CD III/3, pp. 298–9). However radical evil may
be, Ricoeur narrates, it cannot be as primordial [or original] as goodness’, and
therein it becomes ‘scandalous at the same time it becomes historical’.25
23 A. Winston, ‘Barth’s Concept of the Nihil’, The Personalist 40 (1959), pp. 54–61 (p.
55); cf. CDIII/3, p.290.
24 H.U.vonBalthasar,Theo-Drama,VolumeI.Prolegomena,trans.GrahamHarrison(San
Francisco: Ignatius Press,1988),pp.167–8.
25 P. Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), pp. 156, 203.
Burns lists this citation with others that enable him to complain that ‘most [recent
theological andphilosophicalattemptstounderstandthenatureofhumanevil]...still
tend, if mutedly, cling to the notion of mankind’s essential moral goodness’. R.M.
Burns,‘TheOriginsofHumanEvil’,ScottishJournalofTheology53(2000),pp.292–
315 (p. 292). If ‘essential’ here has reference to the eschatologically creative will of
God (the theological reality of human being) then Burns demonstrates a lack of
understanding of the nature of evil within a theology of grace. If it refers to the
phenomenon of the human (the actuality of human beings) then he seriously
misunderstands Ricoeur’s theological point. It is significant that when Ricoeur speaks
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326 John C. McDowell
ForBarth,anyaetiologyofdasNichtigerequiresa‘protection’ofthegrammar
ofcreaturelydignity,byinsistingthatitcannotbesoughtin‘inthenon-divinityof
the creature’ (CD III/3, p. 349).26 Possibly alluding to Nietzsche’s talk of
Christianity as ‘life-denying’ and his own philosophy as ‘a yea-saying’, Barth
speaks of his intention to be ‘loyal to the earth’ by being true to humanity’s
permanent belonging-to-the-world and opposing both human conflicting with
temporality’sfluxandanyattempttoescapetheproperlimitationsofcreaturehood
of one’s life-span’s definite temporal allottedness, which is ended by death (CD
III/2,p.6).Temporality isevenattributabletohumanity’seternallife(CDIII/2,p.
521). So Kerr regards Barth as ‘celebrating our finitude’.27 Createdness, that
declared‘good’bytheCreator,islife’sproperframework:‘wearenotinanempty
oralienplace’(CDIII/3,p.48).Andthosewordsaresignificantlywrittenatatime
when Europe is facing rebuilding after the horrors of Auschwitz and the war’s
ravaging of the continent.
Thus, as created, humanity has no right (sin is closed off from human being),
reason (what has been created is good), or freedom (freedom is the creature’s-
freedom-for-God)tosin.Thisisthetheologicalsenseofthecomment,contextually
unreadableasapaternalrenderingofGod-creaturerelations,‘Thecreatureisnotits
own. It is the creature and possession of God’, and not ‘capable of sin’ (CD III/3,
pp. 359, 356). Consequently, as explicated earlier in II/2, there is no divine fore-
ordination or equipment of humanity to sin, but rather to blessedness and eternal
life (CD II/2, pp. 170, 171; cf. III/1, pp. 263–4).
The conflict, then, is not only with God but also with creatures. Sin is
‘detrimental’, and harmful to the extent of disturbing, injuring and destroying ‘the
creature and its nature’ (CD III/3, p. 310). Barth speaks of it as a ‘denaturalizing’
‘self-alienation’.28
Itisthisoppositional/conflictualperspectivethatfacilitatestheuseofnegative-
language – das Nichtige (nothingness), negativity, a substance-less antithesis (CD
III/3, p. 302), and ‘ontological impossibility’ (CD III/2, p. 146), unmo¨gliche
Mo¨glichkeit (impossible possibility) (CD III/2; III/3, p. 351); ‘the absurd
(irrational) possibility of the absurd (irrational)’ (CD III/3, p. 178), an ‘inherent
contradiction’ (CD III/3, p. 351); a possibility passed over and rejected as a
legitimate reality by God. In other words, as das Nichtige it has no autonomous
being like that of creatures. Rather its quasi-reality is received in a relation of
of the ‘anteriority of innocence’ he does so in the context of the Admaic myth of the
Fall (see TheSymbolismof Evil,pt. IIch. 3; citation fromp. 251).
26 One needs to be careful, as, for instance, Allender is not with language of ‘The evil
person’ lest it forget that even in sin human beings are elected creatures. See Dan B.
Allender,‘TheMarkofEvil’,inLisaBarnesLampmanandMichelleD.Shattuck,eds.,
God and the Victim: Theological Reflections on Evil, Victimization, Justice, and
Forgiveness (GrandRapids: Eerdmans, 1999),pp.36–60.
27 FergusKerr,ImmortalLongings:VersionsofTranscendingHumanity(London:SPCK,
1997),p.24; cf.pp. vii–viii, 23.
28 Barth, TheChristian Life,p. 213.
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Barth on Nothingness 327
negation or privation of the ‘good’, a description approving of Augustine’s post-
PlotinianMalumestprivatioboni(CDIII/3,p.318),andisthereforethenullitythat
isonlyparasiticalon,andnotinanywayidentifiablewith,thegoodthatis‘reality’
(or ‘being’) (CD II/2, pp. 170–1).29
The gate-crasher
Asthat to which God gives ‘an absolute and uncompromising No’ das Nichtige is
the ‘uninvited’ enemy, an unwanted intruder into created life (CD III/3, pp. 292,
310).
But, what is the nature of this ‘uninvitation’? According to Hick there are
groundsforsuspectingthatBarth,inasense,madenothingnesslogicallynecessary
for his scheme of creation and redemption.30 Barth, in his way of opposing any
Manichaean style dualism, grounds das Nichtige in God’s activity of election and
creation, albeitinthequalified sensethatGoddoesnotelect orcreate it(CDIII/3,
pp.351–2).Moreover,inadiscussionofGen.1:2heappearstoequatedasNichtige
with the chaos from which God’s creating was separated (CD III/3, p. 352).31
Hicktentativelyclaims thatBarthmaintains theOfelixculpainthesensethat
evil ‘exists’ in order ‘to make possible the supreme good of redemption’.32 Barth
does unwittingly appear to imply that sin is inevitable for creation, for instance,
whenhedeclaresthat‘GodwillsevilonlybecauseHewillsnottokeeptoHimself
the light of His glory but to let it shine outside Himself’ (CD II/2, p. 170).
Thissuggeststhat,inaveryrealsense,then,theresponsibilityfordasNichtige
lies with God. Fiddes, for example, argues that the notion of
theopusalienumofGodcomesdownheavilyonthesideoftheopusofGod.It
is too much ‘his own’ and not enough ‘most alien’ ... It is simply his own,
though hapless, work.33
29 Rene´ Girard,citedbyWebster,Barth’sMoralTheology,p.76:‘theabsoluteneedthat
demonshavetopossessalivingbeinginordertosurvive.Thedemonisnotcapableof
existing apart from that possession.’ According to Augustine, while evil is not a
substance it appears asa substance (DeMorbisManichaeorum, 2.5.7).
30 Hick, Evil andthe Godof Love,p. 138.
31 This, one must re-emphasize, is not Barth’s equation of das Nichtige with the
Schattenseite,althoughRuetherfeelsthat‘thisfrontierhasawayofbecomingblurred’
inBarth’sexplication(Ruether,‘TheLeftHandofGod’,p.14).HickunderstandsBarth
tobethinkingofwhathas‘traditionally’beencalledmetaphysicalevil,namelyfinitude,
imperfection, impermanence, and the fact of having been created ex nihilo and being
thus ever on the verge of collapsing back into non-existence. However, Barth views
theseasnecessarylimitations andimperfections thatarenottobeaccountedevil(see,
e.g., CDIII/3, p. 74onphysical death ‘asanatural limitation’).
32 Hick, Evil andthe Godof Love,p. 139.
33 P.S.Fiddes,TheCreative SufferingofGod(Oxford:ClarendonPress,1988),pp.218–
19.RodinpushesthisconflictfurtherintotheeternalityoftheGodhead‘whichisthen
playedoutinthecreaturelysphere’.R.ScottRodin,EvilandTheodicyintheTheology
of KarlBarth (NewYork: Peter Lang, 1997),pp. 89–90.
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328 John C. McDowell
To fully address this question one would need not only to explore Barth’s
treatment of divine omniscience and its relation to creaturely agency, but also his
dialectical talk of the nature of eternal temporality as a simultaneity (past, present
and future are all ‘present’ to God) inclusive of a successiveness.34 At least it can
berecognized,theologically,thatforBarthitiscreation,andnotevil,thatexistsas
thepresuppositionof,orinordertomakepossible,redemption.Moreover,Barth’s
theologydoesnot appear tobe a‘problem-oriented approach’ (i.e., postulating the
incarnatehistoryasaresponsetosin),althoughthisstatementmustbequalifiedby
noting that henever abstractly discussesthe questionofan incarnation in asinless
worldsincecreationissinful,andthereforetheincarnationisalwaysplacedwithin
thatcontextinamannerreminiscentofRev.13:8’slambslainfromthefoundation
of the world (CD II/2, p. 122; IV/1, p. 36). So he speaks of the world’s
reconciliation, resolved in eternity and fulfilled on Calvary (CD IV/2, p. 314).
Hence, the Incarnate’s conflict with sinfulness cannot, without some copious
qualification,merelybethetemporalplayingoutoftheexclusionofdasNichtigein
creation.
Itisvitaltonote,then,thatBarthdoesnotsuggestthatbecausedasNichtigeis
that for which God, as Creator, is somehow responsible for bringing into its own
‘improperway’thatsinistherefore necessary,inanytheo-logicalsense(CDIII/3,
p.351). In this discourse, and indeed perhaps more surprisingly given the typesof
readings popular of Augustine’s (‘free will’!) ‘theodicy’, Barth moves to prevent
the question ofthe unde malumbeing directed towards the creature. Sincannot be
conceivedasapossibilityofhumanity’screatednaturesincethatwouldimplythat
it isgrounded in the will ofGodasa means to the end of human nature (see CD
III/3, p. 292).
The is-ness of the inessential and insubstantial
Inasomewhatcuriousstatement,however,Barthdeclaresthat‘It‘‘is’’becauseand
assolongasGodisagainst it’(CDIII/3,p.353).IsHickright tosuggestthat das
Nichtige is not nothingness but something, in other words, an aspect of the ‘good’
and not that which God has declared to be creation’s enemy?
On the contrary, by giving das Nichtige its ‘is-ness’ as that which is rejected,
the opus Dei alienum (understood only in the light of the opus Dei proprium)
declares what it is that is not good, that is not part of his creative intention, and
denies it the divine right of becoming something. It deprives it of the status of the
‘is-ness’,of‘autonomousexistence independentofGodorwilledbyHimlike that
of His creature’, of creative intentionality (CD III/3, p. 353): ‘Only God and His
creature really and properly are. But nothingness is neither God nor His creature’
(CD III/3, p. 349).
34 J.C. McDowell, Hope in Barth’s Eschatology: Interrogations and Transformations
Beyond Tragedy(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000),ch. 5.
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