The Faith of the Church. Karl Barth
25. Why do you add: Maker of heaven and earth?—Because he manifested himself to us through his works, and in them he is to be sought by us (Ps. 104; Rom. 1:20). For our mind is incapable of entertaining his essence. Therefore there is the world itself as a kind of mirror, in which we may observe him, in so far as it concerns us to know him.
We cannot know God in his essence. “No man can see my face and live.” But God makes himself known to us in the world. Here we must make several clarifications in order to avoid some big mistakes.
First of all, the world, creation, is not a part of God as the gnostics used to represent it. The world is not an emanation from God, but the putting into being of something different from God, which is over against God. If the world were divine in itself, it could not be said: God loves the world, for then God would be loving himself and remain alone. Love signifies: relationship between two really different beings. The world is then a reality in itself, a proof of the mercy of God who agrees to the existence of something outside of himself. There is an absolute imparity between God and the world, but, within this imparity, there is a hyphen: creation depends on God. God upholds creation and God judges what is good and what is evil. There is no good and evil “in itself,” but God judges good and evil. And the sin of man consists precisely in the fact that he himself wants to judge what is good and what is evil.
Next, what is the nature of the knowledge of God which is given us in the world? Let us beware now: Man has no possibility to know God “through nature.”
There is no knowledge of God which was given along with the existence and the essence of the world. We ourselves cannot say: God is in the world here or he is there. But God himself is he who, in the world, gives himself to our knowledge, according as he pleases. We notice with what reservations Calvin speaks of this knowledge: the world does not stand witness of God but insofar as God wills it and wherever he wills it. It is not the history of any people which witnesses unto God, but the history of Israel. It is not any book, but the Holy Scripture. It is not any man, but Jesus Christ. And yet the history of Israel, the Bible and Jesus Christ belong to the world. The world then is a mirror that reflects something found elsewhere, that reflects it insofar as God wills it and wherever God wills it.
QUESTION 26. By heaven and earth you understand, do you not, whatever creatures exist?—Yes, certainly; but in these two names are comprised all things, since they are either heavenly or earthly.
The Nicene Creed expresses it this way: “the visible and the invisible.” We might add: ideas and matter, spirit and body, angels and beasts. Thus there is distinction between spirit and matter. But if there be a relative superiority of the spirit over matter, there is no absolute difference between them in relation to God: both spirit and matter are creatures and redemption applies as well to either. Let us not fancy that spirit is divine in itself, or that matter, unlike spirit, is not called to redemption. Let us not fancy that this is only an ecclesiastical problem: it is also a political problem. For all that is within the world is called to redemption. Spirit and matter are united both in sin and grace: let us not separate what God has united.
QUESTION 27. Why then do you call God merely creator, when it is much more excellent to defend and preserve creatures in their being, than once to have made them?—This term does not merely imply that God so created his works once that afterwards he took no care of them. Rather, it is to be held that the world, as it was once made by him, so now is preserved by him, and that similarly both the earth and all other things persist only in so far as they are sustained by his virtue and as it were his hand. Besides, since he has all things under his hand, it also follows from this that he is the supreme ruler and lord of all. Hence from his being Creator of heaven and earth, we are to understand that it is he only who with wisdom, goodness and power rules the whole course and order of nature; who is the author of both rain and drought, hail and other storms, as also of serenity; who fertilizes the earth of his beneficence, or again renders it sterile by withdrawing his hand; from him also both health and disease proceed; to whose power finally all things are subject and at whose nod they obey.
We have here the opposite of the parable of deism which says God made the world like the clockmaker a clock. Once all was finished, the clock works by itself, with no help from the clockmaker. On the contrary, God is maintaining his creation unceasingly. Nothing in the world is independent of God; where there is order, it is God-given. If there be chance or fate, these are still under God’s governance. No necessity, no absolute action is independent of God, no freedom which is not God-granted (for he does grant it), no contingency which is not disposed of by God. The order existing in the world has nothing absolute about it. It does not exist aside from him who ordains. At bottom, both determinism and indeterminism are false: God governs and allows determinate and indeterminate things.
From our point of view as creatures, there are “good” things and “evil” things. But the certainty of the fatherly governance of God teaches us how to be thankful for whatever he sends our way. For all things are under his governance. The Heidelberg Catechism puts it even more positively (27): “All things come not by chance, but by his fatherly hand.” Therefore there can be no need for a theodicy, no need to justify God in all he does, since everything that happens is in his hand and since good and evil cannot be judged “in themselves,” but in relation to his fatherly goodness.
QUESTIONS 28–29. Now what shall we say of wicked men and devils? Shall we say that they too are subject to him?—Although he does not govern them by his Spirit, yet he checks them by his power, as with a bridle, so that they are unable even to move unless he permits them to do so. Further, he even makes them ministers of his will, so that they are forced, unwilling and against their inclination, to effect what seems good to him.
What benefit accrues to you from the knowledge of this?—Very much. For it would go ill with us, if anything were permitted wicked men and devils without the will of God; then our minds could never be tranquil, for thinking ourselves exposed to their pleasure. Only then do we safely rest when we know them to be curbed by the will of God and, as it were, held in confinement, so that they cannot do anything but by his permission, especially since God himself undertakes to be our guardian and the captain of our salvation.
Calvin does not explain the origin of evil. It suffices him to state it. God and his creation are the grand “Yes” whereto any opposite is “no.” But as for this evil, God puts a bridle upon it. Consequently we must not run through the world with sad faces, with “momiers’ ” looks.• We believe too much in the strength of the devil, we bury Christ again after his resurrection.
All we have said is not a “Weltanschauung”, a theory, some thing to be contemplated. It is faith: that is, not an idea about God, but a relationship with God who is acting and whose action in Jesus Christ grounds our trust.
Questions 30–37
I. INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND ARTICLE
The second article treats of Jesus Christ. Before we tackle it we shall make two general remarks:
REMARK I. On the Link Between the Three Articles of the Creed. The first article speaks of God, the father of Jesus Christ. God is God, above man. Already then, we had to speak of man. And in the third article, that of the Holy Spirit, we shall see that it deals again with God, but along with man, within man. The second article tells us: God himself is man. Therefore it is central, and from it we must interpret both the first and the third. The second article forms the pivot of this God-man relationship expressed also in the first and the third. In sum, it expresses the content of the whole Creed. The first article is only the presupposition of the second, and the third is its consequence. Thus, in the Christian sense, we may speak of God “in himself” only after we have understood his divine condescension whereby he became man in Jesus Christ. And, likewise, we cannot speak of the Christian “in himself,” for the Christian is only a consequence of that unity of God and man in Jesus Christ. Every theological error could be reduced to two basic types: an abstract