A sneak peak at my Barth Blog Conference paper

Karl Barth and Herman Bavinck:

The Deus Dixit and the Proper Task of Dogmatics

One of Herman Bavinck’s most profound contributions to theology can be found in his prolegomena to Dogmatics (RD 1) in which, he seeks to bring forth a necessary and fundamental starting point for all further elucidations on the proper task of dogmatics. This starting point as such begins with Bavinck’s affirmation that “God has spoken,” Deus dixit. The significant impact of Bavinck and his exposition of the Deus dixit can be found in his influence on Karl Barth. Barth subsequently took up Bavinck’s use of the Deus dixit, and in the same light as Bavinck, furthered its use by way of his development of a three-fold word of God and commentary on the proper task of dogmatics. Barth, in preparation for his Göttingen lectures, read closely the Gereformeerde Dogmatiek of Herman Bavinck and incorporated Bavinck’s understanding of the Deus dixit into his lectures. The influence of Bavinck and the Deus dixit, did not cease at the completion of the Göttingen lectures, but continued to impact Karl Barth’s theology. It is important to note that although Barth was heavily influenced by Bavinck’s declaration, that “God has spoken,” he continued to develop this theological axiom. Barth was working both with, and beyond Bavinck.  Although Barth’s use of the Deus dixit has been examined in studies by Bruce L. McCormack and John Vissers, it is my intention to go beyond the examination of Barth’s appreciative use of Bavinck and to examine the differences and similarities of Barth and Bavinck’s dogmatic use of the Deus dixit.

Metaphysics and musings about God

In Church Dogmatics II.1 §28, Barth warns against the reduction of the doctrine of God into a form of metaphysical musings about the being of God, which he suggests Melancthon to have done at some length in his Loci of 1521. Barth, here, cautions against simply having a philosophical knowledge of God because it abstracts God from His actions in Christ. It is by God's actions that God is known--He is not bound by them, but they are bound to Him. It is clear for Barth that our quest is not to ask questions about "being," but about God, and "that our subject is God and not being, or being only as the being of God."[1] But, what then is the place of ontology and metaphysical language in Christian theology? Barth himself says, "Yet we must not yield to a revulsion against the idea of being as such..."[2] It seems as though Barth is getting at a post-doctrine of God ontology. That is, once the statement "God is," is addressed, it is then appropriate to engage in a further investigation of "being" as such. But this investigation must always be modified and directed by the statement and presupposition that, "God is."
It is in my own thoughts and studies that I find metaphysical knowledge and language helpful. But it is important that we heed the advice Karl Barth, and resist the temptation to absorb God into another metaphysical category, which leaves discussions of God quite empty. Metaphysical language and musings may be helpful--and often beneficial--though, the theologian must always be reminded that questions of "being" tell us nothing about God, but the statement "God is," tells us about God's being. That God simply is, must be our starting point.

[1]Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics II.1: The Doctrine of God §28, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance, trans. G.W. Bromiley (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 4
[2]Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics II.1, 4

Barth--Prayer and Knowledge of God

This is an awesome quote!

"Lead us not into temptation--into the temptation of an objectivistic consideration of God's secondary and primary objectivity; a disinterested non-obedient consideration which holds back in a place which it thinkgs secure. Lead us not into the temptation of the false opinion that Thou art and object like other objects which we can undertake to know or not just as we wish, which we are free to know in this way, or even in that. Lead us not into the temptation of wanting to know Thee in They objectivity as if we were spectators, as if we could know, speak and hear about Thee in the slightest degree without at once taking part, without at once making that correspondence actual, without at once beginning with obedience."[1]






[1] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics II.1: The Doctrine of God, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance, trans. G.W. Bromiley (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 24

Lecture at UCI: Slavoj Zizek on the Public Use of Reason

This past Friday I went down to the University of California Irvine to hear Slavoj Zizek lecture. It was really great and he was very entertaining. Here are some notes that my buddy Harris Bechtol, M.A. Philosophy from Loyola Marymount, took during the lecture.

1) Zizek's favorite theologian: G.K. Chesterton (he said this verbatim)

2) Christ's death on the cross is not an act of salvation, but the death of the ideology that Someone is in control and pulling all the disparate strings together--the death of the global perspective or heavenly perspective in Job. In other words, it marks the death of the cosmic perspective [sub specie aeterni]. In this regard, the death of Christ was the ultimate giving of freedom to su to take control of our lives.

3) The Holy Spirit is simply the believing community, which means that it is the first candidate/manifestation/model for the communist party

4) His paradigm for examining the volcano eruption in Iceland, the oil spill off of Louisiana shore, healthcare reform in the US:
       -Traumatic/horrific experience ("the real")
       -3 idiots exchanging their ideas ("the symbolic/comedic")

5) He is playing off of Immanuel Kant's use of the phrase "the public use of reason" in so far as Zizek agrees that this use of reason is a withdrawing from your private community to engage as a single individual with other single individualities. We don't wpeak for our community in this public use of reason. Zizek did admit that we are grounded in our communities, but we can speak as a non-rep of these communities through the public use of reason. We need something similar to this, says Zizek, in striving for a shared universal truth. However, Zizek's use of universal here is not Kantian, which in this regard Zizek departs from Kant, because he is not saying we need an abstract, interestless, and universal (in the Kantian sense of inherently or essential a part of the structural makeup of the human mind) use of reason, but opening the space for the outcasts to share their reason and ideas. [In this regard, universal seems to indicate an openness to many and myriad different voices and ideas.]
       -Zizek also calls this "political reason"—it is not Rawlsian or naively universal as Kant sought, but has the outcasts as its limit case. Thus, not a neutral, rational         universality.
       -Zizek follows Hegel in this use of reason because Hegel regarded the people who are not normally part of the public scene as the standard of universality.
       -Thus, that which is not part of the community is the universal standard.

6) Zizek said that the university and the learning going on in universities should not be ivory-tower-like, but should have social use. In light of his understanding of universality, he the university is absolutely crucial for an open space or a venue for the public use of reason. The university is a [the?] site of the public use of reason.

7) Democracy without a public use of reason is meaningless. However, Zizek sees in China [I think] a development in capitalism that does not demand a democracy.

One of my profs at Loyola said that Zizek is not doing philosophy, and I have been wondering why he said this about Zizek. However, I may know one reason: in response to a ridiculous question ("How do you live with yourself?") Zizek said, "I don't believe in the self." He believes he is simply a machine to do theory and everything else is extraneous "bull shit." In so far as he does not see theory and philosophy as connected with a Socratic kind of coming to know the self, then he is not a philosopher in my books. I wonder, though, whether his response to this person's question was meant to be taken tongue-in-cheek. Zizek said two or three times in his response that he is being dead serious, but I kind of wonder if he wasn't. Who knows.

Bruce McCormack on God and History

“The history which constitutes the being and existence of the human Jesus belongs to the history of God in the second of God’s modes of being (as ‘Son’). If, in Jesus Christ, God has elected to become human, then the human history of Jesus Christ is constitutive of the being and existence of God in the second of God’s modes to the extent that the being and existence of the Second Person of the Trinity cannot be rightly though of in the absence of this human history."[1]

This is a great quote! Bruce McCormack brings to light the relationship and unity between God's history in eternity and God's history in temporal existence. McCormack, in an incredible way, displays the heart of Barth's theological ontology, and leaves no room for God to be contemplated in terms of an abstract metaphysical subject.

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[1] Bruce L. McCormack, Orthodox and Modern : Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), 223