Basic HTML Version
30
find God, and in the latter “God’s search for man” in Jesus Christ. Barth does not recognize any
revelation in nature. Revelation never exists on any horizontal line, but always comes down
perpendicularly from above. Revelation is always God in action, God speaking, bringing
something entirely new to man, something of which he could have no previous knowledge, and
which becomes a real revelation only for him who accepts the object of revelation by a God-
given faith. Jesus Christ is the revelation of God, and only he who knows Jesus Christ knows
anything about revelation at all. Revelation is an act of grace, by which man becomes conscious
of his sinful condition, but also of God’s free, unmerited, and forgiving condescension in Jesus
Christ. Barth even calls it the reconciliation. Since God is always sovereign and free in His
revelation, it can never assume a factually present, objective form with definite limitations, to
which man can turn at any time for instruction. Hence it is a mistake to regard the Bible as
God’s revelation in any other than a secondary sense. It is a witness to, and a token of, God’s
revelation. The same may be said, though in a subordinate sense, of the preaching of the
gospel. But through whatever mediation the word of God may come to man in the existential
moment of his life, it is always recognized by man as a word directly spoken to him, and coming
perpendicularly from above. This recognition is effected by a special operation of the Holy
Spirit, by what may be called an individual testimonium Spiritus Sancti. The revelation of God
was given once for all in Jesus Christ: not in His historical appearance, but in the superhistorical
in which the powers of the eternal world become evident, such as His incarnation and His death
and resurrection. And if His revelation is also continuous — as it is —, it is such only in the sense
that God continues to speak to individual sinners, in the existential moment of their lives,
through the revelation in Christ, mediated by the Bible and by preaching. Thus we are left with
mere flashes of revelation coming to individuals, of which only those individuals have absolute
assurance; and fallible witnesses to, or tokens of, the revelation in Jesus Christ, — a rather
precarious foundation for theology. It is no wonder that Barth is in doubt as to the possibility of
constructing a doctrine of God. Mankind is not in possession of any infallible revelation of God,
and of His unique revelation in Christ and its extension in the special revelations that come to
certain men it has knowledge only through the testimony of fallible witnesses.
QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY:
In what sense can we speak of the hidden or unknown God
in spite of the fact that He has revealed Himself? How did the Scholastics and the Reformers
differ on this point? What is the position of modern theology? Why is revelation essential to
religion? How does agnosticism differ theoretically from atheism? Is the one more favorable to
religion than the other? How did Kant promote agnosticism? What was Sir William Hamilton’s
doctrine of the relativity of knowledge? What form did agnosticism take in Positivism? What
other forms did it take? Why do some speak of Barth as an agnostic? How should this charge be
met? Is “revelation” an active or a passive concept? Is theology possible without revelation? If
not, why not? Can the doctrine of innate ideas be defended? What is meant by “cognitio Dei