03_modern_0202_barth

Karl Barth, a theologian of the 20th century, had a transformative experience during World War I. He began to doubt his liberal beliefs and started to see the Bible as the determining factor of faith. Barth's commentary on the Book of Romans caused controversy at the University of Berlin, as it challenged traditional views on inspiration. Despite denying the inerrancy of Scripture, Barth maintained a high respect for the Bible and focused on Jesus Christ as the center of everything. He later wrote his influential work, "The Church Dogmatics," in Switzerland. Barth's theological method served as a model for those who did not hold to inerrancy but still valued the Bible and the historic doctrines of faith. Karl Barth was the most influential theologian of the 20th century. A bit about his life. His parents were conservatives, but he ended up going to a Schleiermacherian school there in Germany because even a hundred years later, that was still the theology of the day. And he loved it, really, until World War I came around in 1914, and all of his liberal professors supported the war. Barth was very against it and could not believe the actions of his liberal professors, and it really caused him to doubt his liberal philosophical underpinnings. Remember that Schleiermacher proposed that faith determines the Bible. Well, now Barth started to wonder if maybe it was the other way around. Maybe it was the reverse. Maybe the Bible really determines and forms our faith. So during this time, kind of on his own, he fell in love with the Bible, really. And during World War I, he wrote a commentary on the Book of Romans. During this time, too, he came to see Calvin and realized a perfect example of an exegete who understood how to deal with the Bible as both a human and divine text. So both historical grammatical analysis, but also looking to see Christ as the center of everything. At the close of the war in 1918, the notes to his commentary were leaked about a year before it was due to be published, and it caused quite an uproar there at the University of Berlin. His newfound love for the Bible and his new views on inspiration offended a lot of those people. The professors there at the university couldn't believe that their own colleague had such a regressive view of the inspiration of Scripture. But they couldn't deny that it was also really good work, totally fascinating, and it's often today called a bombshell in the playground of the theologians. So from this perspective, you might be thinking, okay, so Barth, I should learn more about this hero of the doctrine of Scripture. Well, okay, that's because we're viewing it from the lens of German liberal Protestantism. He was not at all conservative the way that we think about it, because he denied the inerrancy of Scripture. Based on John 1, he saw John the Baptist as a paradigm for Scripture, and since there it says about John the Baptist, he himself was not the light, he came to bear witness about the light. He said, the Bible is a witness to the Word of God, and it only becomes the Word of God when we read it. It's a kind of conflating illumination with inspiration. So a bit more about his life. He stayed there in Germany until World War II, but this time he got out of Germany and moved to Switzerland. When the war came along, he spent the rest of his life there in Switzerland writing his magisterial four-volume contribution to theology called The Church Dogmatics. His health declined in the 60s, and he never got to write his fifth volume, which would have been on the Spirit. Despite his denial of inerrancy, his theological method, though, was soaked with a high respect for independence on the Bible. Long passages dealing with scriptural exegesis and that kind of thing. As such, he served as really the first model of how someone could not hold to inerrancy but still take serious the Bible, believe in the historic doctrines of faith, and most importantly, keep Jesus Christ as the center of everything, which is kind of what Barth now is known for.