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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
Ten years ago it might have seemed odd to place side by side two men like Karl Barth (1886-1968) and Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), the former considered a ‘modern church father’ of the Reformation and the latter an implacable foe of that tradition in its fledgling state. What is significant however is that their essential spiritual thrust took such similar directions. It is the similarity in essentials that first drew this writer to begin comparing the thought of the two men, but more than a similarity is involved here. An examination of the attitudes of the two towards Christian proclamation and communication provides striking ecumenical possibilities, and allows Roman Catholics and Protestants to see how close their traditions are in so many cases, if only a careful effort is made to understand the other's language. Loyola himself, at the outset of his spiritual manual, offers us a pattern for sensitivity in theological discussion:
To assure better cooperation between the one who is giving the Exercises and the exercitant, and more beneficial results for both, it is necessary to suppose that every good Christian is more ready to put a good interpretation on another's statement than to condemn it as false. If an orthodox construction cannot be put on a proposition, the one who made it should be asked how he understands it. If he is in error, he should be corrected with all kindness. If this does not suffice, all appropriate means should be used to bring him to a correct interpretation, and so defend the proposition from error.
page 147 note 1 Puhl, Louis J. (trans, and ed.), The Spiritual Excercises of St. Ignatius (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1951), p. 11.Google Scholar
page 148 note 1 Ott, Heinrich, ‘Der Gedanke der Souveränität Gottes in der Theologie Karl Barths’, Theologische Zeitschrift, Heft 3 (Mai-Juni, 1956), t. 423.Google Scholar
page 148 note 2 Cf. Rumscheidt, Martin, Revelation and Theology: An Analysis of the Barth-Harnack Correspondence of 1923 (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1972), p. 126.Google Scholar
page 149 note 1 Neyron, Gustave, S.J., ‘St. Ignatius Loyola and The Ideas of His Time’, The Woodstock Letters, vol. LXXIX, no. 3, 1950), p. 201.Google Scholar
page 149 note 2 ibid., p. 204.
page 149 note 3 Cf. Rumscheidt, op. cit., p. 149 and passim.
page 149 note 4 Cf. Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics, Bromiley, G. W. and Torrance, T. F., eds., vol. I, The Doctrine of The Word of God, Part I (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1936), p. 59Google Scholar. Because of the complexity of indexing Barth's immense work, we shall simply cite this volume, from which most of our notes arc taken, as DWG. A more thorough development of Barth's theology of proclamation can be found in Starkloff, Carl F., S.J., , The Office of Proclamation in The Theology of Karl Barth (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1969).Google Scholar
page 149 note 5 On this point, cf. McConnachie, John, The Barthian Theology and the Man of Today (London: Hodder and Stoughton Ltd., 1933), p. 65: ‘This doctrine of contemporaneousness, which Barth learned from Kierkegaard, is very central in his teaching, making the Word of God always a present Word to him.’Google Scholar
page 149 note 6 Godsey, John D., How I Changed My Mind (Richmond, Va.: John Knox Press, 1966), p. 11.Google Scholar
page 150 note 1 DWG, Part II, p. 806.
page 150 note 2 Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. II, The Doctrine of God, Part II, p. 205. Henceforth cited as DG.
page 150 note 3 Barth, , ‘Die Botschaft von der freien Gnade Gottes’, Theologische Studien, Heft 23 (1947), pp. 15–16.Google Scholar
page 150 note 4 Cf. Barth, , Die protestantische Theologie im 19. Jahrhundert (Zürich: Evangelischer Verlag A. G., 1946), p. 399.Google Scholar
page 150 note 5 DWG, I, p. 126.
page 150 note 6 Barth, , ‘Antwort auf Herrn Professor von Harnacks offenen Brief’, Die Christliche Welt, Heft 37–8 (1923–1924), col. 250. Cf. also Rumscheidt, op. cit., on this point.Google Scholar
page 150 note 7 Cf. Starkloff, , ‘Schleiermacher and Barth on Religious Experience‘, Revue de l'Université d'Ottawa, vol. 39, no. 1 (1969), Janvier-Mars, p. 121.Google Scholar
page 151 note 1 DWG, I, p. 227.
page 151 note 2 ibid., pp., 232–3.
page 151 note 3 ibid., p. 518.
page 151 note 4 ibid., p. 521.
page 151 note 5 There have been no few comments made about Barth's stress on the ‘event’ nature of faith here and the apparent lack of continuity. A fellow Protestant like Klass Runia commented on this as a criticism, cf. Karl Barth's Doctrine of Holy Scripture (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1962), pp. 127–8. The problem is worth discussing, but for our purposes here, Barth's theology of ‘event’ is the important point.
page 151 note 6 DWG, II, p. 276.
page 151 note 7 Cf. Barth, , Das Wort Gottes und die Theologie; Gesammelte Vorträge (München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1925), p. 117.Google Scholar
page 151 note 8 Barth, , Ad Limina Apostolorum (Zürich: EVZ-Verlag, 1967), pp. 28–29.Google Scholar
page 152 note 1 It is worth mentioning here that the giving of the Spiritual Exercises does not require ‘orders’ in the Roman Catholic Church. The role of the director is not a canonical function, except when he might act as a confessor.
page 152 note 2 DWG, I, p. 65.
page 152 note 3 Barth, , La Proclamation de l'Évangile (Neuchâtel, Suisse: Éditions Delachaux et Niestlé, 1961), pp. 5–6.Google Scholar
page 153 note 1 ibid., p. 16.
page 153 note 2 ibid., p. 17. Cf. Hamer, Jérôme, Karl Barth: l'occasionalisme théologique de Karl Barth (Paris: Descléc de Brouwer, 1949)Google Scholar. Hamer has a point in challenging Barth, as does Runia. But in so far as Barth defends the utterly unique nature of each personal encounter between God and the believer, he might well use such a strong designation, if he chose to do it, although the actual term is not Barth's at all. A scholastic philosopher might get away with calling the preacher a ‘dispositive cause’ of the event, but Dr Barth would scowl even at this, I suspect!
page 153 note 3 ibid.
page 153 note 4 ibid., p. 22.
page 153 note 5 ibid., pp. 37–8.
page 153 note 6 ibid., p. 40.
page 153 note 7 ibid., p. 42.
page 154 note 1 ibid., p. 48.
page 154 note 2 Puhl, op. cit., p. 43.
page 154 note 3 ibid., p. 101.
page 155 note 3 ibid., p. 11.
page 155 note 4 ibid., p. 49.
page 156 note 5 Traditional Roman Catholic theology has tended to distinguish ‘states of life’, usually divided into the married state, the state of consecrated celibacy, and the single state. Ignatius is using such categories here. He speaks of ‘immutable choices’ such as marriage and the priesthood also. The Choice to be made by the retreatant in the Second Week need not be confined to such classifications. A full instruction on The Choice can be found in Puhl, op. cit., pp. 71–8.
page 156 note 6 Puhl, op. cit., p. 61.
page 156 note 7 ibid., p. 81.
page 156 note 8 ibid., p. 82.
page 157 note 1 ibid., p. 144.
page 157 note 2 ibid., p. 101.
page 157 note 3 ibid., p. 103.
page 158 note 1 Rahner, Karl, S.J., , Spiritual Exercises, trans. Baker, Kenneth, SJ., (New York: Herder and Herder, 1966), p. 254.Google Scholar
page 158 note 2 ibid., p. 225.
page 159 note 1 Neyron, op. cit., p. 203.
page 159 note 2 Longridge, W. H., The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola (London: Robert Scott, 1919), p. 285.Google Scholar
page 159 note 3 ibid., p. 286.
page 159 note 4 ibid.
page 160 note 1 ibid., pp. 286–7.
page 160 note 2 ibid., p. 290.
page 160 note 3 Puhl, op. cit., p. 1.
page 160 note 4 ibid., p. 6.
page 161 note 1 Rumscheidt, op. cit., p. 33.