Barth in Conversation: Volume 3: 1964-1968

By Karl Barth

In recognition of Karl Barth’s stature as a theologian and public figure in the life of Europe and the West, Swiss publisher Theologischer Verlag Zurich (TVZ) published Conversations, a collection of correspondence, articles, interviews, and other short-form writings by Barth. Collected in three volumes, Conversationsreveals the depth and breadth of Barth’s theological thought as well as his humor and humanity. Now, for the first time in English, the third and final volume is offered here. Volume 3 covers the period from 1964 to 1968, the year of Barth’s death. As such, it represents the culmination of the great theologian’s thoughts on a broad range of subjects, from the challenges of living as the church in an increasingly secular world to the distinctive joys and challenges of the pastoral vocation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Release date: Nov 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781611649710

Karl Barth

Karl Barth (1886-1968) was a pastor, an outspoken critic of the rise of the Nazi Party, and Professor of Theology at the University of Basel, Switzerland.

Book preview

2019

Translators and Assignments

Clifford Anderson, Associate University Librarian for Research and Learning and Professor of Religious Studies, Vanderbilt University: chapters 13, 14, 15, 40, 47

Matthew J. Aragon Bruce, Visiting Associate Lecturer in Theology, Wheaton College: chapters 6 (partly), 21, 25, 34

John P. Burgess, Professor of Systematic Theology, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary: chapters 20 (partly), 33, 42 (partly)

David C. Chao, Postdoctoral Fellow in Asian American Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary: chapters 6 (partly), 43

Terry L. Cross, Professor of Systematic Theology and Dean, School of Religion, Lee University: chapters 6 (partly), 22, 42 (partly)

Sven Ensminger, PhD (University of Bristol): chapters 6 (partly), 8, 9, 12, 19, 29, 46

David A. Gilland, Lecturer in Systematic Theology, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany: chapters 2, 4, 6 (partly), 16 (partly)

Matthias Gockel, Senior Lecturer in Systematic Theology, University of Basel: chapters 5, 6 (partly), 7, 11

Darrell L. Guder, Emeritus Professor of Missional and Ecumenical Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary: chapters 1 (introduction), 10 (introduction, footnotes), 44

Judith J. Guder, Retired musician and translator, Princeton, NJ: chapters 3, 6 (partly)

Cambria Kaltwasser, Assistant Professor of Theology, Northwestern College: chapters 6 (partly), 16 (partly)

David MacLachlan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Atlantic School of Theology: chapters 6 (partly), 24, 36, 37, 38, 39, 42 (partly), 48

Amy Marga, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology, Luther Seminary: chapters 6 (partly), 17 (partly), 26

Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, Associate Professor of Theology, Tyndale Seminary: chapter 35

Paul T. Nimmo, King’s Chair of Systematic Theology, University of Aberdeen: chapters 20 (partly), 32, 41

William Rader, Minister (retired), United Church of Christ: chapters 6 (partly), 31, 45

Patricia L. Rich, Translator: chapters 17 (partly), 23, 27, 28, 42 (partly)

Ross Wright, Rector, The Church of the Good Shepherd; adjunct professor, Randolph-Macon College: chapters 18, 30, 42 (partly)

Abbreviations

1. Conversation with Students at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey

January 18, 1964

In Barth’s later years he was regularly visited at the beginning of the new year by students taking a theological course at the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey (Basel), gathered from a great diversity of countries and confessions, for a conversation with him. There are notes on the conversation of January 18, 1964, conducted in English, which are located in the Barth Archive and preserve the questions and Barth’s handwritten notes of his answers, They are, of course, somewhat fragmentary. [The following text is the English original text in Gespräche, 1964–1968, 565–66.]

Question 1: Our studies on syncretism center on the reality of the cosmic Christ. Does the church represent this event for the whole world? If yes, are we not limiting the universality of Christ? And if we do not limit him within the historical church, then how are we to understand the need for mission?

Barth: 1. The cosmic Christ:¹ His real presence and activity as the living Creator, Savior, Lord in every element and point of nature and history (of space and time).

2. As such revealed in the particular Easter event—to be finally, totally, and definitely revealed in his last coming.

3. As such hidden outside (and inside!) the church, where he is not yet (or no more) heard by the power of the Holy Spirit.

4. The overcoming of this limitation is his own deed and work.

5. The task of the church is to witness and to announce his deed and work—inside of its own boundaries (regular worship + evangelization) and to the whole world (mission).

Question 2: Many of us at Bossey were impressed by a Hindu professor who came to present his religion to us. What is your understanding of such a Hindu, who—while worshiping in a traditional Hindu way and while believing Jesus to be, not the only Savior, but one of a series of avatars—yet exhibits in his life some of what in a Christian context would be called the fruits of the Spirit [Gal. 5:22–23; Eph. 5:9]?

Barth: 1 (preliminary!) The wind blows where it wills [John 3:8]: Breakthroughs (revelations) of the hidden Christ are always and everywhere possible: inside and outside the church: even in the life and work and message of strangers (Melchizedek! [Gen. 14:18–24; Heb. 7:1–4]), heathens, atheists!

2. Is your Hindu such an extraordinary phenomenon of the revelation of the hidden Christ? Fruits of the Spirit? [Gal. 5:22–23]. Are they characterized as signs of the kingdom of God, that came and will come—or as demonstrations of human concentration and devotion?

—as announcements of the good news of God’s grace for poor sinners—or as a moral law to be fulfilled in the active work of extraordinary gifted human beings?

—as examples of liberation of the I for God’s and the neighbor’s Thou—or as a form of the glory of one’s own I?

—as an imperative call—or as an object of uncommitted admiration?

3. Is he a witness of Christ—why then of him as One among Others?

—why then not as revealer of the one God in his one Son and Word?

—why then his belief in him as one in a series of avatars?

Question 3: What do you think about the accusation that there are gnostic elements (e.g., the emphasis on the structure of existence and the theological necessity of self-understanding) in certain tendencies of current New Testament studies and their systematic expression?

Barth: 1. Gnosticism (old and new): where the gospel is understood and explained with the help of certain metaphysical, ontological, and anthropological presuppositions—instead of listening to its good news, to which all kinds of such principles have to be subordained.

2. Certainly there are gnostic elements in some tendencies of current New Testament studies!

Question 4: In our study of syncretism we discussed the struggle between the cosmic Christ and the principalities and powers. In what terms are we to understand and interpret this cosmic struggle today?

Barth: 1. "Principalities": natural (created and as such good) powers, destined to help us in the service of God and the neighbor, which—if man behaves . . . as independent—become his lords (State, Money, Sex, Publicity . . .), capturing our life.

2. Joining in the bid: Thy name, Thy Kingdom . . . we are looking toward our liberation from these lords and for our eschatological redemption.

1. For discussion about the cosmic Christ see, for example, J. Moltmann, Der Weg Jesu Christi: Christologie in messianischen Dimension, (Munich: Kaiser, 1989), 297–336, esp. 299–302.

2. Interview with Carl Bringer and Dietmar Schmidt

February 18, 1964

On February 18, 1964, Carl Bringer and Dietmar Schmidt interviewed Barth in his home on behalf of the Hessischen Rundfunk [Hessian Broadcasting Co.] about his relationship with Martin Niemöller. Schmidt had sent him a page with questions for the interview already in January, on which Barth had written keywords for his answers in the margin. The page implies that the conversation was rather detailed. Nevertheless, the material recorded at the time is no longer available (according to C. Bringer, Hessischer Rundfunk, in a statement to the editor of this volume on August 22, 1990). It is also unknown whether it ever was broadcast in full. In any case, three segments of the interview were used for a broadcast on the occasion of the death of Martin Niemöller (1892–1984).

In the following, Barth’s keywords are rendered in italics and the segments from the broadcast in 1984 subsequently in normal typescript. D. Schmidt had already interviewed Barth during Barth’s holidays in Brione (Tessin) in March 1959 for his planned biography of Niemöller. Direct quotes and other biographical reminiscences that Schmidt had taken from that conversation for his book are provided here in the footnotes.

Schmidt: Professor Barth, over the course of the last thirty years you have come into frequent and intense contact with Martin Niemöller—in personal, ecclesio-political, also in theological contact, if this categorization of a human relationship may be allowed. You actively experienced the fight of the Confessing Church, and you also were involved decisively in the formulation of the Barmen Theological Declaration of 1934. You didn’t break contact with Niemöller when he was in a concentration camp, and you helpfully and animatingly stood by Niemöller in the essential moments of his activity. May we ask you to describe for us the most important stages in the development of your relationship to Martin Niemöller?

Barth: Disappointment: contact good and solid, but frequent and intense?

Stages: 1. Distance: Swiss. Westphalian.

1914–18, 1920s

Theologian—Activist

Wehrung¹

My first encounter with Martin Niemöller—I think it was at the end of the 1920s—took place in Münster in Westphalia, at the house of Georg Wehrung, who was my colleague at the time. I can remember very clearly how the door opened and how then in the corner behind the door a slender, gangly young—no longer quite so young—man stood and fixed sharply on me, and my impression was that I didn’t appear particularly likeable to him; and for my part he instilled a certain dread in me on account of his stern military character. Martin Niemöller and I were—and still are today—two very different creatures of God: he a Westphalian Prussian or a Prussian Westphalian, I a Swiss. And we have both gone further down those lines for our entire lives.

2. Encounter: Berlin 1933²

Barmen 1934

KZ (concentration camp)

1945³

3. Opportunities: Trust

We only came to understand each other slowly over the years. We then met again in Berlin during the struggle with the Reichsbischof at the time, Müller, and his German Christians, and then later at the Barmen Confession Synod and in the difficult controversies that followed upon it. We wanted the same thing, but we wanted it in two very different ways: I always followed a direction more meditative, if not to say speculative, whereas he had always been an activist, a man of praxis and fighting.

Then the time came in which he ended up in the concentration camp. We then had a certain long-distance connection by means of all kinds of underground channels. We first really became friends in the significant year of 1945. From then on, we said Du to each other, met with each other frequently, and I can say that the longer I got to know Martin Niemöller and the better I got to know him, the more—I can rightly say—I have come to have an absolute trust in this man.

Schmidt: In what, Professor, do you see the abiding significance of Niemöller for the Evangelical Church in Germany and ecumenism?

Barth: Significance: Example of the free work of the Holy Spirit from the gospel—lived as example. How? You hear its rushing . . . [John 3:8].

Where?⁴ America

Eastern Orthodox Churches

Nehru

Pope

Necessary and good as the knight on the chessboard

Schmidt: In what, furthermore, do you see his significance for the general political development and formation of consciousness in Germany and in the world after 1945?

Barth: For general development . . . ?:

Annoying stranger

Living seed in the soil of time

1. M. Niemöller was head of the Inner Mission in Münster/Westphalia from 1924 to 1931. In D. Schmidt, Martin Niemöller (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1959), 121–22, D. Schmidt gives an account of Niemöller’s meeting with Barth in the house of Georg Wehrung (1880–1959), who was Professor of Systematic Theology: Their first meeting around 1925 in the house of Prof. Wehrung hardly indicated how they would find each other later. Barth’s first impression of the young pastor was—‘How Prussian.’ ‘He looked at me warily. He didn’t like me.’ They then lost sight of each other.

2. Cf. Lebenslauf, 246–47. (Barth’s Life, 233–34.)—Further, D. Schmidt, Niemöller, 121: In the exclusivity claim of the Confessing Church two men who were profoundly different in disposition and mind-set came together: The Prussian and former officer, in whose deliberations the demands of the moment predominantly weighed, and the Alemannic theologian, who wanted to expand the German Church struggle into a ‘general cleansing,’ a settling of accounts with 200 years of bungled theology. —122: At one of the first gatherings of the Pastors’ Emergency League, the same thing somehow perturbed Barth or at least appeared strange to him: the ‘tremendous power of command’ of the Prussian Niemöller, his commandeering tone in statements like ‘Now, everyone out who doesn’t belong to the Emergency League!’ or ‘Women out!’ In addition, the curt hand movements, which tolerated no dissent. —108: At the evening before the reception of Hitler [Jan. 24, 1934], at the high point of this oddly improvised council in the Hospiz St. Michael, which everybody who was anybody in the church at the time attended, Barth summarized the sentiments of his contemptuous rejection in one sentence: ‘We have another spirit, we have another faith, we have another God!’ Barth composed a memorandum to Hitler in 57 minutes, in the same tone of implacability, at the request of those at the assembly. It remained a draft; the final version, which came about with Niemöller’s assistance, is in essence more conciliatory in form and content. Although this version warned with earnest words against creating a state church, it indeed unequivocally demanded the restoration of the trust that had been shaken by Müller’s regime, but at the same time the oath of loyalty, which Barth had consciously avoided, is included with broad strokes.

3. On Barth’s participation in the first postwar meetings of the Council of Brethren of the Confessing Church on August 21–24, 1945, in Frankfurt and of the leadership of the Evangelical Church in Germany on August 27–31, 1945, in Treysa, cf. D. Schmidt, Niemöller, 179: The professor of theology from Basel, who had offered Niemöller the fraternal ‘Du’ in a welcome letter immediately after Niemöller’s release, was electrified by Niemöller’s SOS call by telegraph ‘Come over and help us’ [cf. Acts 16:9], and he crossed the Swiss-German border without a passport, dressed as a GI, in the jeep of an American intelligence officer he had befriended. Niemöller urged that Barth accompany the delegates of the Confessing Church—as a ‘Fleet in Being,’ as he had said in unforgotten sailors’ jargon—to the imminent first conversation with the ‘official’ church in Treysa, to the discontent of a few South German ‘brothers,’ who, as they said, ‘first had to ask their regional bishop.’

4. On the following keywords, cf. the remark by D. Schmidt, Niemöller, 179. On Niemöller’s visits, which always stirred public excitement, to the USA, 189–91; to the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow, 221–24; and to India, 192; on his criticism of Pope Pius XII, 232–33. Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964), Gandhi’s follower, held various political offices, lastly (1947–64) that of Prime Minister of India.

3. Interview with Dietmar Schmidt

February 18, 1964

Following the recording of the television interview (chap. 2) on February 18, 1964, D. Schmidt remained for a second interview with Barth. According to the note in Barth’s calendar, this interview appears to have been planned for the radio station of the Deutschlandsender (German Broadcasting). Whether it was actually aired is not known. Schmidt published it, however, in the supplement to Number 113 of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of May 16, 1964, the Saturday preceding Pentecost, under the title Karl Barth says: ‘I feel like Father Noah.’ A Conversation with the Swiss Theologian. The occasion for this conversation was the thirtieth anniversary of the adoption of the Barmen Declaration by the Confessing Synod in Barmen on May 31, 1934. In addition, Schmidt connected this to the appearance of Barth’s Epistle to the Romans forty-five years earlier, which he thought was not entirely appropriate (see note 1 below).

1. Change in Barth’s Thinking

Schmidt: It was forty-five years ago, Professor Barth, that your Epistle to the Romans¹ appeared. The turn in theological thinking that it introduced has not lost any relevance to this day. By now, the term Dialectical Theology² is in usage even by nontheologians. There are Barthians all over the world. Admittedly, you yourself do not like this word. You once declared at a meeting, If you should meet a Barthian somewhere, greet him nicely and say to him that I am not one.³ Moreover, you have more than once acknowledged your transformations. How would you answer, for example, if someone asked you today, What has become of ‘Dialectical Theology’?

Barth: I think, on the first matter concerning Barthians, we can let it rest. I have never been interested in any -ians, and I hold to that with Barthians. There are also nice people among Barthians, it cannot be denied, but let’s leave this aside.

Now there are two questions, however, that I must answer. Namely, in the matter of my own transformations in these forty-five years. It has been a long time and thus not a surprise that there have in fact been changes. I wish to speak only to the most important. At the time, my intention in Romans was that a completely new emphasis should be introduced: pointing away from the human and toward God. Previously, around 1910, we lived in an atmosphere in which the pious person was the real theme of theology. And then I found that I saw something else in the Bible, turned the matter around, and said: Let us speak of God, of his name, his kingdom, his will. That was the basic thought. And so The Epistle to the Romans came about. But then in the course of years, I realized that in the Bible it is not quite so simple. Yes, it is about God, but about the God who deals with human beings, who advocates for them, who himself became human. And then I had to take up the theme of nineteenth-century theology in a new way: the human person, but now the person—confronted with God. God’s grace and man’s gratitude: that now became the theme of my theology. In Old Testament terminology: the covenant between God and God’s people Israel—one could also say, between God and God’s church. The church of Jesus Christ!

This was the great turn or transformation that took place then. In connection with that, I also became a bit friendlier as a theologian. I was not a very pleasant conversation partner forty years ago. As a rule, there was live ammunition in my writing. I can still shoot in that way when I must, and I reserve for myself everything, but on the whole I can honestly say that I have become calmer and also acknowledge opposing positions with more patience. Today I would have difficulty writing a brochure titled Nein⁴ as I did in 1934. I do continue to dislike people who say yes and no instead of yes or no, but I have come to see that one must say yes and then also rightly say no. One must say no, and then yes must also be said. And that will be the relationship of the famous parameters of Gospel and Law.⁵

2. On the Question of Confessions in the Evangelical Church

Schmidt: The fact that the Barmen Declaration came into being thirty years ago was due, largely and importantly, to your collaboration. It formed a decisive if not the decisive theological event in the struggle of the Confessing Church against Hitler and his so-called German Christians. At that time Lutherans, Reformed, and Union churches joined with each other in a common campaign. Do you believe that such a cooperation of the particular Protestant confessions would still (or again) be possible today? How do you see the justifiability and purpose of the particular Protestant confessions in our time? You are supposed to have said once that you could not imagine anything more beautiful than a reformed Lutheran. How is this paradoxical sounding statement to be understood?

Barth: Quickly to your last question: the term reformed Lutheran could describe our immortalized friend Hans Iwand.⁶ He represented ideally the type of theologian who went through the school of Luther, but who then very seriously took note of Calvin, and in whom Luther and Calvin met each other in a unity that was unique.

But now to your other questions. I believe that such a unified path of the particular Protestant confessions, as we had in Barmen in 1934, would still be possible today. Then it was said that Lutherans and Reformed were hammered together by a common opponent.⁷ There was surely something to that. Unfortunately, the togetherness did not last. Perhaps it would be necessary again that one is hammered together by some emergency; otherwise I see little possibility that the unity visible in Barmen for a very short time could be reproduced. Certainly not in an artificial way! It could be the case again only in a commonly experienced event. Incidentally, think of this: the confessional unity that was visible there was not the actual goal of the declaration; it was, so to speak, a by-product—we were led together or hammered together. Basically, what we were dealing with was simply the plight of the Evangelical Church, which surfaced and became visible in the false teaching of the German Christians. This teaching contained something that for more than two hundred years had been smoldering underground in the Evangelical Church and was still present—a deep lack of clarity on the question What is really the center of our faith as well as our theology? And Barmen was the attempt, beyond the incidental or nonincidental occasion, to reach back to a unity regarding the subject matter.

In 1934, at the time of the Barmen Declaration, we spoke in a very solemn manner of the Lutheran, Reformed, and Union churches in Germany. I think that perhaps the time has ended when it was possible and correct to raise these ideas so strongly and to behave as though there were still in all seriousness a Lutheran, a Reformed, and also a Union church within the Evangelical Church.

Today we stand before the more comprehensive question of the relationship between the Evangelical Church and the Roman Catholic Church. Would it not be high time to see that the barriers that divide us within the Evangelical Church have in fact become only relatively significant, and basically [the differences] have an importance only for a number of theological and liturgical professionals, while the weight of the serious questions has shifted in another direction? Does it still make sense that we argue over or come to an understanding of the various meanings of the Lord’s Supper, as it was done in Arnoldshain?⁸ Does it really have any meaning anymore? I myself could not continue with that discussion. The questions have become more comprehensive, and so must the answers become. I claim, in all modesty, that my Church Dogmatics is neither a Lutheran nor a Reformed dogmatics. I don’t want to boast—I actually wrote it as an ecumenical dogmatics. And I hope, I dare to hope, that the development toward truly ecumenical thinking will continue, and this would have to happen especially within the Evangelical Church itself.

3. On the Relationship to Mozart

Schmidt: Once you spoke of the suspicion that there were only a few pastors’ studies in which pictures of Calvin and Mozart could be seen hung at the same level.⁹ Right now the two of them are looking down at us. Eight years ago, on the occasion of the celebration of Mozart’s 200th birthday here in Basel, you were the speaker who gave the memorial lecture.¹⁰ Certainly no obvious role for a theologian. Even in your Dogmatics we can find the composer’s name.¹¹ Would you be able to sketch the role of Mozart in your theology, in your life?

Barth: The question is simple to answer, but it must be answered carefully. Mozart is for me not something like a church father who plays a direct role in theology. And when his picture hangs there on the same level with Calvin, I don’t mean that I draw my theology partly from Calvin—which by the way could only in a small measure be true—and that Mozart would then also join the conversation with another contribution. It’s not that. On the other hand, there may be something to it, and surely there is: it is truly no coincidence that I prefer to listen to this music. Perhaps to return to the previous question: the quarrel between the Lutherans and the Reformed is a very un-Mozartian enterprise, and perhaps the more I listen to Mozart the less I can continue to participate in this quarrel. I don’t want to repeat what I have said in that lecture or anywhere else about Mozart. At the time I placed Mozart under the sign of the concept of freedom. When I hear Mozart, I hear the voice of a free and liberating person, and then my thinking and perhaps also my manner of expression is exhilarated by it. So Mozart does not play a role, but he does give a tone to my theology, and I am happy for the one who hears this tone, which is not simply pure harmony but the tone of a free, engaged human life, which should be the right life precisely in the encounter and relationship of a person with God.

4. The Catholic Renewal Movement

Schmidt: Occasionally, one hears the concerned statement from German theologians that, regarding dogmatics, you, Professor Barth, have come close to Catholicism in a rather worrisome way. Your often-cited discussion with Erich Przywara on the analogia entis is offered as the favored evidence of this. Thus¹² the questions: What chance do you give the conversation between the confessions, as it presently appears to come to life again? How do you judge the possibilities and ramifications of the Roman Council?¹³

Barth: First, to the concern that you mentioned. I believe that this is a completely superfluous worry. The name Erich Przywara was just mentioned. Now, Erich Przywara was the one who said many years ago that what was remarkable about my theology was that in it the tone of original Protestant thinking broke through and confronted the Catholics.¹⁴ Original Protestant—that would not be said of Harnack nor of Troeltsch, not even of Seeberg, but it was said of me. And now I find it extremely nonsensical, and founded on a deep misunderstanding, that I of all people am supposed to have come close to Catholicism in a worrisome way. And concerning the analogia entis, I stated in the foreword to the first volume of the Church Dogmatics that I saw in it the virtual invention of the antichrist.¹⁵ Today perhaps I would express this in a different way, not as sharply as I spoke then. At any rate, this may show you that in the conversation over the analogia entis no bridge or rapprochement was reached. But let us leave aside this subject.

You ask about the opportunity for conversation and the possible outcomes of the Council. At the moment, I believe the possibilities and ramifications of the Council cannot be overlooked at this moment. Things are completely in flux. Wait and see! We will see what emerges from it. Remarkable developments are possible and perhaps will come. I am less interested in the Council than I am in the movement that has taken place and become visible in the last ten years within the Catholic church and Catholic theology, a strangely strong movement. Yes, I say strangely, but I could also say a wonderfully strong movement toward the center of our common faith, simply put, toward Jesus Christ. That is a tone to which Pope John XXIII gave special expression, but it has also been taken up by the present Pope, Paul VI. He made his pilgrimage to Jerusalem under the sign of a return to the sources of the gospel.¹⁶ Who would not pay attention to that?

And now the situation causes me to ask: Where do we stand? Are we experiencing a return to the sources of the gospel or at least a call for it? When I think of the issues that are in the foreground of our discussions within Evangelical theology, this eternal talk about hermeneutics and the historical Jesus and about the word event!¹⁷ What paltry little questions compared with the great issues that our Catholic colleagues and brothers are dealing with at present—issues that have found a more or less powerful expression in the [Second Vatican] Council. Let us watch that we do not fulfill the saying in the New Testament that the first shall be last and the last shall be first [Matt. 19:30; 20:16]. So that is just an outline of my current considerations regarding Catholicism. I hope that it won’t now be said: well, we see, he has indeed come close to Catholicism. And wasn’t Mozart of whom we’ve just spoken a good Catholic? Then I would say, well, but he was a good Freemason as well. And I am also someone other than the one who only now and again looks at the Roman Catholics. But I believe that it is high time. And I would actually prefer not to be the only one with the thought that it could lead to great shame—or that we might learn something in an unexpected place.

5. On Theological Dead Ends in Germany since 1945

Schmidt: Following the end of the last war, you had great hopes for a new beginning in Germany. In a letter to the German theologians who were war prisoners, you wrote the following: Isn’t it as though all the angels in heaven are holding their breath in anticipation of what could and would have to happen with the Germans, now that all German wealth, fame, and pride is at an end? [. . .] One could envy the Germans for the offer that is made precisely to them.¹⁸ You wrote this in July 1945. Today how would you regard the spiritual, moral, or ethical situation of Germany, seen from this viewpoint? Have your hopes from that time been partially fulfilled?

Barth: Well, this matter shows that one cannot be careful enough in coming even close to the desire to prophesy. Perhaps I went a small step too far with that statement to the student prisoners of war when I spoke of the angels in heaven so bluntly and let myself be moved by the corresponding hopes. On the whole, it is better to simply go one’s own way, step by step, without asking what could come of this.

If you now were to put a gun to my head and ask me if I think that my hopes from previous times have been fulfilled, then I must carefully and a little wistfully, smiling through my tears,¹⁹ say that not all blossoming dreams ripened.²⁰ I actually imagined it a little differently from what happened. There, I addressed German theologians. Now they have returned to their universities, and there probably have been two large themes that moved people in the last twenty years. One was the already-mentioned problem of confessionalism. They all at once went back to their old flock or, in any case, were urged to go there. The second theme was the Bultmann controversy that arose. I don’t want to address this controversy; I would only say that I had not expected German theologians now to plunge again into Lutheranism on the one hand and to existentialism and demythologizing on the other. I had thought that more important themes could be discussed. Actually, I see in both of these developments a driving into dead ends. In any case, something gratifying as well as hopeful also took place in these dead ends. I have not lost hope that one day there could be a return from these dead ends and that we could find ourselves on a path that would lead ahead instead of leading backward—on the one hand to the sixteenth century, as the confessional people wanted, and on the other hand to the nineteenth century, as it unfortunately seems to be the goal and the point of the Bultmann school.

There are people among the middle-aged, the younger and—as far as I can see—even the youngest generation, who are beginning to look a bit to the possibility that the flood could recede [see Gen. 8:6–12]. And so now I sometimes feel, as my Catholic friend Hans Küng once said, like Father Noah, who occasionally sends a dove to see if it will return with an olive branch in the hand, in the mouth, or in the beak. That is all I want to say about it, no more and no less.

1. In 1919, thus 45 years before this interview, Barth’s Epistle to the Romans appeared in its first edition. The book Schmidt refers to is the second edition, which appeared in 1922.

2. Barth preferred to characterize his theology, which he developed in his beginnings with some friends, as Theology of the Word of God. The term dialectical theology had been attached to them by some observer; K. Barth, Abschied, in ZZ 2 (1933): 536. See his explanation of the dialectical path in the lecture The Word of God as the Task of Theology, in The Göttingen Dogmatics: Instruction in the Christian Religion, ed. H. Reiffen, trans. G. W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1991), 1:309–12; also Die christliche Dogmatik im Entwurf, vol. 1, Die Lehre vom Worte Gottes: Prolegomena zur christlichen Dogmatik (1927), ed. G. Sauter, Karl Barth Gesamtausgabe, Abt. 2 (Zurich: TVZ, 1982), 579–85.

3. If you meet someone who says he is a Barthian, give him my greetings and tell him that I am not one! From an unpublished manuscript from 1947, perhaps an addition to the Bonn lecture that remained a fragment, Die christliche Lehre nach dem Heidelberger Katechismus (Zollikon-Zurich: EVZ, 1948). Cf. also the introduction to chap. 8.

4. K. Barth; No!, in K. Barth and E. Brunner, Natural Theology, trans. P. Fraenkel (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002). First published in 1946.

5. The recent discussion on the famous parameters was triggered by Barth’s essay, Evangelium und Gesetz, ThExh 32 (Munich: Kaiser, 1935) (= ThExh NS 50, Munich 1961).

6. Barth’s cited statement about Hans Joachim Iwand (1899–1960) took place during a conference with theological friends in March 1951, in the Preacher’s Seminar of the Evangelical Church in Hessen and Nassau in Herborn Palace (see Barth’s letter to Iwand on April 29, 1951, in the Karl Barth-Archive).

7. God has hammered us together and perhaps we need more hammering. A statement by Pastor Friedrich Graeber in a discussion among Lutheran Synod attendees during the Barmen Synod on May 29, 1934. This according to a record by W. Gabriel printed by C. Nicolaisen, Der Weg nach Barmen: Die Entstehungsgeschichte der Theologischen Erklärung von 1934 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1985), 102.

8. The eight propositions on the understanding of the Lord’s Supper, the so-called Arnoldshain Theses, were officially recognized on November 1–2, 1957. They are published in Abendmahlsgespräch der evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland, 1947–1957: Bericht der Kommission für das Abendmahlsgespräch der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland an den Rat der EKD und an die Kirchenkonferenz, ed. G. Niemeyer et al. (Verlag des Amtsblattes der EKD, 1958).

9. K. Barth, How I Changed My Mind, about 1948–1958 (Richmond, VA: John Knox Press, 1966), 71–72.

10. K. Barth, Mozarts Freiheit: Ansprache bei der Gedenkfeier im Musiksaal in Basel am 29. Januar 1956, in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756/1956 (Zollikon-Zurich: EVZ, 1956; 13th ed., 1996), 33–50; ET: Mozart’s Freedom, in K. Barth, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, trans. C. K. Pott (Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1986), 43–60.

11. For the most detail, see CD III/3:297–99 (KD 337–40).

12. On Barth’s encounter with Erich Przywara, SJ, in February 1929, see Bw.Th. 2:651–54. Especially in his book Analogia entis (Munich: J. Kösel & F. Pustet, 1932), Przywara applied Catholic doctrine formally to the central concept of the analogia entis. Barth repeatedly argued with this approach in the earlier volumes of the Church Dogmatics; see CD I/1:44, 274, 279 (KD I/1:40, 252, 257); CD II/1:226–27 (KD II/l:254). H. U. von Balthasar (The Theology of Karl Barth: Exposition and Interpretation, trans. E. T. Oakes, SJ [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992]), found in Barth’s turn to analogy (86) a movement toward Catholic theology.

13. Second Vatican Council, 1962–65.

14. See E. Przywara, Die dialektische Theologie, in Schweizerische Rundschau 27 (1927/28): 1096: But, and this is much more decisive, Catholic religiosity and theology will be forced to have a clearer consciousness of its own identity because of what is happening in this movement [of dialectical theology], where Protestantism is rediscovering its own identity. See also Przywara, Die dialektische Theologie, 1090; also Ringen um Gott, in Ringen der Gegenwart, in Gesammelte Aufsätze, 1922–1927, vol. 1 (Augsburg: Dr. Benno Filser Verlag, 1929), 242; also Mystik und Distanz, in Ringen der Gegenwart, 1:497; also, Gott in uns und Gott über uns, in Ringen der Gegenwart, 2:553. See also from a later time: H. U. von Balthasar, Humanitas: Der Mensch gestern und morgen (Nuremberg: Glock & Lutz, 1952), 727–28.

15. CD I/1:x (KD I/1:viii).

16. The trip took place in January 1964.

17. Hermeneutics and word event were prominent themes raised in theological discussion at the time. See E. Fuchs, Hermeneutik (Bad Cannstatt: Müllerschön Verlag, 1954); also Fuchs, Zum hermeneutischen Problem in der Theologie: Die existentiale Interpretation, in Gesammelte Aufsätze 1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1959); G. Ebeling, Wort und Glaube, vol. 1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1960). On the discussion of the historical Jesus, see the summarizing presentation by J. M. Robinson, Kerygma und historischer Jesus (Zurich/Stuttgart: Zwingli Verlag, 1967), 11–36. See also below 23, fn. 9.

18. In O.Br. 1945–1968, 52–53.

19. See H. Kutter, Reden an die deutsche Nation (Jena: Diederichs, 1916), 98: O, exalted one, in tears smiling humor! See also below 187, fn. 25.

20. See the sixth strophe of J. W. von Goethe’s poem Prometheus. The Poems of Goethe, ed. William Gibson (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1886), 307.

Was it thy thought, perchance,

That I, in hatred of life,

Should fly to deserts,

Because not all

My blossomed dreams had ripened?

4. Interview with Heiner Lichtenstein

February 24, 1964

On the morning of February 24, 1964, Barth provided information to Heiner Lichtenstein, from the Politics section of the West German Broadcasting Company [Westdeutscher Rundfunk], in response to questions in connection with the thirtieth anniversary of the Barmen Theological Declaration from May 31, 1934. His answers were then part of a radio program that was broadcast on May 31, 1964, on the Premier Channel of WDR from 11:00 to 11:45 with the title The Call from Gemarke: History and Significance of the Barmen Synod of 1934. Along with Barth there were contributions from Joachim Beckmann as well as Wilhelm and Gerhard Niemöller. The text of the broadcast, published in manuscript form by WDR at the time, has been shortened to focus mainly on Barth’s contribution and is therefore reproduced here only in extracts.

Wilhelm Niemöller: At the beginning of the Third Reich, the Evangelical Church stood before a situation that was completely new and unknown. The brown authorities declared that they wanted to afford the church every protection, though they could immediately become very unpleasant if the church didn’t approve of it jubilantly. The new masters bubbled over with self-confidence and vitality, and the better the forcible cooptation [Gleichschaltung] went for them in other areas, the more they were inclined to forcibly coopt the church and make it into a cheap tool for their own politics. Their protagonists within the church were the Protestant National Socialists, who were already called German Christians at the time, saw in Hitler the savior of the Fatherland and of Christianity, and praised the new order with spirit and verve. They demanded a broad national mission to the German people [Volksmission], the introduction of the Führer principle into the church, the excision of everything non-German, the Aryan Paragraph, and a powerful Reichs-Church. For them, everything that had happened in the church up to that point was too feeble and too ambiguous. It soon became apparent that they didn’t have a clue about theology. For them, ecclesial polity stood above any ecclesial reflection, and with the help of party officials, often employing the most robust means, they were able to successfully take over the church in the church elections on July 23, 1933. It was a wicked game, but sadly more than a game. From that point onward, the color brown dominated in the church assemblies and committees; the work appeared complete when the so-called confidante of the Führer, the military chaplain Ludwig Müller, became the leader of the German Evangelical Church.

The entire year of 1933 was filled with storms. The courts were often called upon, the use of violence by the German Christians was denounced frequently, and there was, if ever so slowly, an assembly of those who did not want to allow the church to become an instrument of this state and its worldview. As a result, the Pastors’ Emergency League arose in September under the leadership of the President of the Church in Hessen, Martin Niemöller, who was pastor in Berlin-Dahlem at that time. Confessing circles and confessing communities were formed at the time. Theological working groups came together and worked on reports. Especially important was a new proclamation that Karl Barth, first and foremost, commenced when he issued his booklet Theologische Existenz heute! [Theological existence today]¹ shortly before the church elections.

Lichtenstein: At the time Karl Barth was Professor of Theology at the University of Bonn. He will recount himself how he came to affiliate with the Barmen Synod.

Barth: I was called upon and placed in this relationship to Barmen at the time first on the basis of the fact that I was one of the very few academic representatives of the Reformed confession in Germany. It also happened that a year earlier I had become somewhat known for a brochure that appeared under the title Theological Existence Today and in which I—one could say—quite clearly took a position on the problems stirring the Evangelical Church, especially on the emergence and role of the so-called German Christians.

Lichtenstein: Among other things Professor Barth wrote in this brochure:

What I have to say to all this² is simply said: I say, absolutely and without reserve, No! to both the spirit and the letter of this teaching. I maintain that this teaching is alien, with no right, in the Evangelical Church. I maintain that the end of that church will have come if this teaching ever comes to have sole sway³ within her borders, as the German Christians intend it shall. I maintain that the Evangelical Church rather ought to choose to be thinned down till it be a tiny group and go into the catacombs⁴ than make their peace, even from afar, with this teaching. I maintain that those who have come to terms with this teaching are either seduced or seducers, and I can recognize the church in this Faith-Movement only in such a way as I have to recognize it even in the Roman Papacy.⁵

Disobedience will have to be rendered to the doctrines, annunciations, and measures of the German Christian Reichs-Bishop and his prebendaries,⁶ which are to be expected to stand in opposition to the gospel. If necessary, the final consequences⁷ will have to be paid in response. And all this, even if 99 percent of those hitherto Evangelical Germans should attach themselves to the German Christians.⁸

Barth: That was rather strong stuff at the time.

Wilhelm Niemöller: Already at the beginning of the second year of the Hitler regime, non-National Socialist congregations had to affiliate with the Confessing Synods or—as one said at the time—to the free Synods. It started on January 3 and 4, 1934, in Wuppertal-Barmen with the first Reformed Synod. A free synod followed in February in the Rhineland, and in March a confessing synod in Westphalia. The great Barmen Synod, the thirtieth anniversary of which is approaching, was called together by Pastor Karl Immer, the real driving force in this matter, in his Barmen-Gemarke congregation. This congregation was a closed confessing congregation, the kind that you seldom came across in those days and later even in the larger cities, and which could only be compared to Berlin-Dahlem. The synod was taken on joyously in Gemarke. There was no lack of hospitality and intercession; it was a community of brothers, in whose midst one could live, discuss, make resolutions, and praise God.

Lichtenstein: One of the most important men in defining the stance of non-National Socialist Evangelical Christians against Hitler thirty years ago was [. . .] Professor Karl Barth. Although his name doesn’t actually appear a single time on the Synod’s list of speakers, it was nonetheless his work, the Theological Declaration, that was the theme of the Synod as such. Karl Barth has lived in Basel since the National Socialists forced him to retire in 1934.⁹ He does not see the point in responding to questions today in relation to the Synod that took place thirty years ago. Though, this is certainly not because he would no longer stand by the position he took at the time (or because he’s changed his mind about the position he took at the time). Rather, Professor Barth is of the opinion that it is no longer his place to involve himself in the affairs of the German Evangelical Church. After hesitating, he nevertheless raises a few questions with which we can conclude this program:

Barth: The question of Barmen today is really the question of a broad field. Entire lectures could be delivered about it. I’ll take on the question in a very specific form. My friend Ernst Wolf once put it this way: " ‘Barmen’ as a call forward means above all [. . .] the task of rigorous self-critical theological introspection, which knows that the truth in which it trusts can only be known to the extent that it is done. Theological reception of ‘Barmen’ thus constantly goes along with ‘exercising’ Barmen. There is no other way."¹⁰

I agree with this formulation. What can that mean in this context: doing and exercising? It has to mean what every church declaration like the Barmen declaration, what every confession—Barmen certainly was intended to be a declaration, not a confession; even so, it was still a kind of confession¹¹—what must pertain to every church confession: It is only as valuable as those who speak it live it out [or do not]. When I have the text of the Barmen Declaration before me, with the introduction that goes to it, then my eyes fall, for example, to the passage that touches on the confessional problem, a problem that played no small role behind the scene at the time. At the time, it was said in the introduction to the actual declaration: As members of Lutheran, Reformed, and United Churches we may and must speak with one voice in this matter today. Precisely because we want to be and to remain faithful to our various Confessions, we may not keep silent, since we believe that we have been given a common message to utter in a time of common need and temptation.¹² My question is this: Has the German Evangelical Church gone further down the path that was trodden here, or not? In view of this question about the confessions, what has and hasn’t happened in Germany since?

I’ll cite yet another, the second, from the six articles of Barmen, where it says: As Jesus Christ is God’s assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins, so, in the same way and with the same seriousness, he is also God’s mighty claim upon our whole life.¹³ Barmen today would mean that thirty years after Barmen the Evangelical Church in Germany has made at least a serious attempt to live on in this unity. That is what we meant and said thirty years ago. The entire synod stood up and said Yes to this clause at the time.¹⁴ Is it still saying Yes to this clause and this unity today? The Barmen Synod and this theological declaration were at the time a strictly theological-ecclesial matter, and the greatest stress was laid on the assertion: safeguard us, God, from the fact that this could have something to do with politics, perhaps even with oppositional politics. No, it was only about the church, only about the gospel and its purity.¹⁵ Factually, however, whether we wanted it or not, the Barmen Synod did have its highly political significance at the time.

It was really a minimum, what we achieved at the time; but all the same—it was a minimum of opposition against the entire National Socialist regime as such and in a very small area. It wasn’t an act of heroism. All the same one can say, If only every area of German life had also achieved such minima! Where did the German press remain at the time, the German theater, the German judiciary system, might I even say the German army? The German Evangelical Church, with a soft voice and as a small sector, at least put this political issue on the agenda, which in Germany itself and in the rest of the world was also regarded as a political issue. Because when the church makes its confession, it cannot be significant only within the church. Then it speaks in the world to the world and its problems, whether it mentions them by name or not. National Socialism is not called by name in Barmen, but practically something was said about National Socialism—and it was heard as such.

Barmen today—now the question will be raised: Has the Evangelical Church factually become a political issue in the past thirty years? Does it want to be? Can it be? Has it had anything to say to the developments and the problems that have moved Germany, and with Germany, to Europe and the world? Is something being uttered into the jumble of time here that is enlightening at least in small measure? In what way can and should what the Evangelical Church has done and said during these thirty years be taken up and understood as a serious contribution to the problems of the world? I only ask: Doesn’t an act like Barmen necessarily bring about effects that could form a call far beyond the walls between the church and the world, a world that rightly or wrongly holds itself to be—to use the famous expression—a world come of age?¹⁶

1. K. Barth, Theologische Existenz heute! (Munich, 1933); new ed. with introduction from H. Stoevesandt, ThExh 2/219 (Munich: Kaiser, 1984); ET: Theological Existence To-day! A Plea for Theological Freedom, trans. R. Birch Hoyle (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1983). This piece, completed on June 25, 1933, was published as Supplement no. 2 of Zwischen den Zeiten and then became vol. 1 of the series of the same title, Theologische Existenz heute! On July 7 Barth sent a copy to Adolf Hitler. On July 8, the 2nd edition was published. Then 37,000 copies were printed up to its seizure on July 28, 1935. Cf. the introduction to the 2nd ed. of Theologische Existenz heute!, 7–25.

2. Barth is referring specifically to the German Christians and their theology.

3. The German original reads: Alleinherrschaft.

4. On the controversy over Barth’s use of the term catacombs, cf. Theologische Existenz heute!, 2nd ed., 132–33, fn. 91.

5. Theologische Existenz heute!, 23; 2nd ed., 57; ET, 50.

6. On Barth’s use of the term Domherrn in the original, cf. Theologische Existenz heute!, 2nd ed., 150–51, fn. 138.

7. The original text was slightly modified by the German editor at this point.

8. Theologische Existenz heute!, 32; 2nd ed., 71–72; ET, 67

9. Actually, 1935. Cf. below, 79–102, 174, 301–3.

10. E. Wolf, Barmen: Kirche Zwischen Versuchung und Gnade (Munich: Kaiser, 1957), 166.

11. Cf., e.g., E. Wolf, Barmen, 74–96.

12. Bekenntnissynode der Deutschen Evangelische Kirche Barmen 1934: Vorträge und Entschliessungen, ed. K. Immer (Wuppertal-Barmen: Kommissionsverlag Emil Müller, 1934), 9; reprinted in A. Burgsmüller and R. Weth, eds., Die Barmer theologische Erklärung: Einführung und Dokumentation, 4th ed. (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1984), 33. [The ET of the Barmen Declaration may be found in the Book of Confessions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), at the Office of the General Assembly, Louisville, KY. Trans.]

13. Bekenntnis Synode der Deutschen Evangelische Kirche Barmen 1934, 35.

14. Bekenntnis Synode der Deutschen Evangelische Kirche Barmen 1934, 25: On Thursday [May 31] at 11:30 the Lutheran Asmussen from Holstein read the . . . theses. . . . The reading followed the highpoint of the confessional Synod. . . . With great thanks to God everyone experienced it, as one delegate after the other confessed to the theses in a nearly dramatic climax, with great seriousness, in part with inner shaking: Once again: Yes, heartily yes! On 28: The motion was accepted unanimously. Movement. —The assembly sprang to its feet.

15. Cf. the pulpit announcement of the Confessing Church from the third Sunday of Advent 1934: We don’t want to be a sanctuary for elements of the politically dissatisfied. . . . No one should allow the sense of duty to be spoiled, which the Word of God imposes on him toward the people and the state. Printed in H. Prolingheuer, Der Fall Karl Barth, 1934–1935: Chronographie einer Vertreibung, 2nd ed. (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1984), 86. Cf. also the statement by Pastor Eduard Putz: Why did Karl Barth jeopardize his work with political statements? . . . It was precisely from Karl Barth that I learned that Christian doctrine does not lead to political judgment; Prolingheuer, Der Fall Karl Barth, 143.

16. This expression became famous through its use by D. Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison: Enlarged Edition, ed. Eberhard Bethge (New York: Touchstone, 1997), 326–27, 329, 341.

5. Conversation in the Bruderholzkapelle

February 24, 1964

The Basel Congregation of St. Eliszabeth (Elisabethengemeinde), to which Barth belonged since he had moved to Bruderholzallee in 1955 (cf. introduction, Conversation 1, 150), used a wooden shed for church events in the remote Bruderholz district. Barth cherished this so-called Holzschopf (wooden shed) as worship space precisely because of its simplicity (Dr. H. Dietschy to the editor in a letter from February 4, 1981). One positive pastor of the parish, Theophil Kachel, occasionally invited Karl Barth to question-and-answer sessions in his circle of coworkers (Helferkreis) consisting of about forty persons. These sessions at first took place in the wooden chapel (see the introduction to chap. 23, below, 197). One such session was held on the evening of February 24, 1964. No recording of the meeting is known to exist. However, a bundle exists with the questions submitted for the evening,