The Faith of the Church. Karl Barth

      INTRODUCTION by Gabriel Vahanian

      Seldom has Barth been so close to Calvin, and Calvin so close to us, as in the present work, now translated and published in English for the first time. Of course, it is not surprising that Barth should echo Calvin; or that he chose as the framework of his lectures delivered before an audience of Swiss reformed• ministers, to use Calvin’s Catechism of the Church of Geneva of 1545. Everyone acknowledges that Barth has been the leader of the so-called revival of the spirit of Reformation theology in the present day, and that this means for him primarily reformed theology.

      What perhaps is surprising is that never has Calvin himself so compelled us to tread other paths than his own as when he is heard through Barth’s interpretation. It will be seen that, for the sake of an equal and common fidelity to the living reality of God, Barth can be marvelously free from Calvin. He can reject him without any feeling of disobedience. But he can also uphold him without reservation. Unlike lesser minds today, he does not have to make Calvin a “Barthian” in order to believe what he says. Nor must he always find some oblique reason in Calvin himself for departing from him in order to write theology in a manner that is truly faithful to the intentions and structure of the rediscovery of the gospel that took place in the period of the Reformation.

      The significant characteristic of Barth’s approach, however, is that its concern is not at all merely to reveal to us where Calvin was right and where he was wrong; but it reveals to us, through the reformer’s teaching, the truth exhibited by the Person, the Word and Work, i.e., by the whole event of Jesus the Christ. This common allegiance, and this alone, accounts for the degree of subjection of Barth’s thought to that of Calvin, and at the same time his extraordinary freedom to disagree where he must. This living reality of the Christ-event neither Calvin nor Barth intend to incarcerate in a theological system, as if neatly to conserve the faith forever. Barth’s approach reveals to us that the purpose of Calvin’s teaching is to let its eternal subject, i.e., the Word become flesh, confront the individual, and perchance the disciple, ever anew.

      What this means is that a reformed theologian never writes for posterity. He exhibits the living Word today. Only in this manner can what he has to say to his contemporaries have any relevance for their descendants. He is not a master or a doctor as are Augustine and Thomas Aquinas in the Roman Catholic Church. The reformed theologian is at his best when he strives after the description which Barth, in another context, applied to the author of the Institutes “Calvin est pour nous un maître dans l’art d’écouter.”• Calvin teaches us how to listen to the Word of God proclaimed, not to himself, but in the Church.

      The foregoing should make evident that it is peculiar good fortune—shall we say, providence?—that this book combines