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The heavenly witness to God: Karl Barth's doctrine of angels*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2017

Mark Lindsay
Mark Lindsay*
Affiliation:
Trinity College Theological School, University of Divinity, Royal Parade, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australiamlindsay@trinity.edu.au
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Abstract

Karl Barth's doctrine of angels has yet to receive sustained scholarly attention. This article begins the work of addressing that omission. In particular, it argues that Barth's unique construal of the angelic being and purpose compels him to propose that the angels have a mediatorial function in the service of God's revelation. While being both necessary to and consistent with Barth's description of the angels’ ontology, this service of mediation contradicts his earlier doctrine of revelation and is superfluous to it.

Keywords

ambassadorsangelsmediationrevelation witness
Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 70 , Issue 1 , February 2017 , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

*

This article was first presented at the ANZATS 2015 conference in Sydney. I am grateful to those who responded to it there, and in particular to my colleagues John McDowell and John Flett, both of whom commented on successive drafts.

References

1 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics [hereafter CD], 13 vols, ed. Torrance, T. F. and Bromiley, G. W. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956–75)Google Scholar.

2 Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Systematic Theology, vol. 2, trans. Bromiley, G. W. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991), p. 103 Google Scholar.

3 Barth, CD III/3, p. xi.

4 Whitehouse, W. A., ‘God's Heavenly Kingdom and His Servants the Angels: An Account of Kirchliche Dogmatik §51 by Karl Barth’, Scottish Journal of Theology 4/4 (1951), pp. 376–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Wood, D., ‘“An Extraordinarily Acute Embarrassment”: The Doctrine of Angels in Barth's Göttingen Dogmatics’, Scottish Journal of Theology 66/3 (2013), pp. 319–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 See e.g. M. Den Dulk, ‘“Von guten Mächten treu und still umgeben . . .” Praktisch-theologische Beschreibung der Engellehre Karl Barths’; M. Plathow, ‘Luther und die Angelologie’; Brouwer, R. H. Reeling, ‘Keine Niederlassungsbewilligung? Nein, Ehrenbürgerrecht! Einige hermeneutische und sonstige Bemerkungen zu Barths Angelogie’, in Zeitschrift für Dialektische Theologie 12 (1996)Google Scholar.

7 See Whitehouse, ‘God's Heavenly Kingdom’, p. 381; Wood, ‘Acute Embarrassment’, p. 321.

8 Wood, ‘Acute Embarrassment’, p. 321.

9 See e.g. Slot, E. Van't, ‘Karl Barth over “das Nichtige”’, Nederlands Theologische Tijdschrift 58 (2004), pp. 226–38Google Scholar; McDowell, John, ‘Mend Your Speech a Little: Reading Karl Barth's das Nichtige through Donald Mackinnon's Tragic Vision’, in McDowell, J. C. and Higton, M. (eds), Conversing with Barth (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), pp. 142–72Google Scholar; Lindsay, M., ‘Nothingness Revisited: Karl Barth's Doctrine of Radical Evil in the Wake of the Holocaust’, Colloquium 34/1 (2002), pp. 3–19 Google Scholar.

10 See Erickson, Millard J., Christian Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998), p. 433 Google Scholar; Osborn, L., ‘Entertaining Angels: Their Place in Contemporary Theology’, Tyndale Bulletin 45/2 (1994), p. 274 Google Scholar. Barth noted that angelology ‘has not been resolutely and explicitly treated for a long time’, prior to his engagement with it (CD III/3, p. xi).

11 Barth, CD III/3, p. 369.

12 Green, Christopher C., Doxological Theology: Karl Barth on Divine Providence, Evil and the Angels (London: T&T Clark, 2011)Google Scholar.

13 Barth, CD III/3, p. 413.

14 Green, Doxological Theology, pp. 194–5.

15 Hunsinger, George, How to Read Karl Barth: The Shape of his Theology (New York: OUP, 1991), p. 4 Google Scholar.

16 Barth, CD III/2, p. 5.

17 Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Beveridge, H. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989)Google Scholar, I.xiv.3.

18 Strong, Augustus, Systematic Theology (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1970)Google Scholar.

19 Erickson, Christian Theology, pp. 433–51.

20 Barth, CD III/3, pp. 380–1.

21 Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 4.37.1.

22 Eusebius of Caesarea, Demonstratio evangelica 4.1. Note, however, Gregory of Nyssa's comment on the origin of evil: that the ‘angelic power’ that had been given authority to rule over the earth became jealous of humankind, on account of it having been given ‘the godlike beauty of an intellectual nature’ (Great Catechism 6). That is to say, he does not seem to share in quite the same way the assumption that rationality is per se a characteristic that is inherently enjoyed by both humans and angels.

23 See Gregory the Great, Moralia 4.3.8.

24 Barth, CD III/2, p. 5.

25 Barth, CD III/3, pp. 393, 400.

26 Ibid., pp. 400–1.

27 See Barth, Karl, Unterricht in der christlichen Religion, vol. 2, Die Lehre von Gott, die Lehre vom Menschen 1924/1925, ed. Stoevesandt, H. (Zürich: TVZ, 1990), §§20–2Google Scholar.

28 Ibid., pp. 315, 344.

29 Ibid., p. 309; Wood, ‘Acute Embarrassment’, p. 330.

30 We are also warned by Barth not to make the mistake of the earlier dogmaticians, who typically regarded angels and demons to be of the same genus. Whereas Cocceius and Heidegger posit a creaturely category of ‘angels’ – who can be either good or bad – Barth makes clear that the angelic opponents are not ‘bad angels’. They are, rather, part of that which God has not elected but passed over. Thus, demons exist only insofar as they are part of the non-willed reality. See e.g. J. Cocceius, Summa Theologiae ex Scriptura repetita 16.2; and J. H. Heidegger, Corpus Theologiae 8.3; cited in Heppe, Heinrich, Reformed Dogmatics: Set Out and Illustrated from the Sources, trans. Thomson, G. T. (London: Allen & Unwin, 1950), p. 201 Google Scholar. See also Barth, CD III/3, p. 520; CD II/2, p. 122. Note, however, that this is another modification of Barth's Göttingen angelology, in which angels and demons form a single ontological category, de angelis bonis et malis.

31 See Barth, CD III/2, the whole of which is devoted to ‘Man’ [sic] as ‘The Creature’.

32 Barth, CD III/3, p. xii.

33 Ibid., p. ix.

34 Ibid., p. 369.

35 Ibid., pp. 90–4.

36 Barth again uses the word begleiten in relation to the work and ministry of the angels, and so may be better understood as ‘shepherding’ rather than simply accompanying.

37 Barth, CD III/3, pp. 369–71, 374, 376.

38 Barth, CD III/3, p. 381 (KD III/3, p. 440).

39 As Wood says in the context of the Göttingen lectures, in which the same methodology was operative, ‘the grand architectonics of an idealist system make[s] way for a more unassuming movement from one doctrinal locus to the next’. Wood, ‘Acute Embarrassment’, p. 323.

40 Barth, CD III/3, p. 391. Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, qq. 50–64; and also his Summa contra Gentiles, II.91.10–11, in which he seeks to demonstrate that angels exemplify the truth that ‘there are some intellectual substances which are not united to bodies’.

41 Barth, CD III/3, p. 424.

42 Noll, Stephen, Angels of Light, Powers of Darkness: Thinking Biblically about Angels, Satan and Principalities (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2003), p. 173 Google Scholar.

43 Barth, CD III/3, pp. 480–1.

44 See also Barth, CD III/2, pp. 13–14.

45 Because they are and act as an entourage, Barth also notes that they cannot be thought of as existing singularly, as though one could be abstracted from the many, but only in plurality. Says Barth, angels are the ‘concretely operative heavenly collective of concretely operative individual heavenly beings’ (CD III/3, p. 451). It is with this in mind that Barth refutes the idea that angelic names and titles bestow any individual distinction. The names of Michael (‘Who is like God?) and Gabriel (‘Man of God’) stand, he says, for all the angels, insofar as those names witness to God's truth as a function of the angelic service generally. Similarly, we misread scripture if and when we interpret – as the early and medieval Fathers did – titles like ἀρχαί, ἐξουσίαι, δυνάμεις and θρόνοι as distinguishing a form of militaristic hierarchy amongst the angelic beings (CD III/3, pp. 456–7). Examples of this abound, not least of all in medieval apocalyptic literature. As just one example, we could cite Tundale's Vision (1149), in which the Irish monk sees ‘nine orders of blessed spirits, namely the angels, archangels, virtues, principalities, powers, dominions, thrones, cherubim and seraphim’. See Visions of Heaven and Hell before Dante, ed. E. Gardiner (New York: Italica Press, 1989), p. 191. Barth himself has in mind particularly the ideas proposed by Pseudo-Dionysius in his Celestial Hierarchy, in which angelic beings are classed by name, title, function and status in a strict hierarchical order (CD III/3, pp. 385–9). There are two problems with this approach. First, Dionysius is guilty of an almost gnostic epistemology. His hermeneutic is governed by the presumption that scripture ‘conceals its mysteries from profane eyes . . . conceal[ing] that which is holy from those who are not initiated’ (CD III/3, pp. 385–6). This Dionysian epistemology thus restricts true knowledge of scripture to a select group of enlightened interpreters, thereby privileging cultic initiation over the dynamic work of the Holy Spirit. But Barth's critique goes further. In addition to this wrong-headed hermeneutic, the type of speculation about angelic ordering exhibited by Dionysius seeks to claim knowable individuality, when in fact we can know the angels only as a collective entourage – an entourage of individual beings certainly, but not one in which the collective can be individuated noetically. Note that Heppe similarly assumes a hierarchical ordering of angels: ‘It must be assumed that there are among them certain gradations, about which Scripture has not revealed anything adequate’ (Reformed Dogmatics, p. 210). He thereby does precisely what Barth wishes to reject – making a claim about something that must be, while at the same time acknowledging that there is no scriptural basis for such a claim.

46 Barth, CD III/3, p. 452.

47 Ibid., pp. 295–6, 349.

48 Ibid., p. 425 (KD III/3, p. 494).

49 Ibid., pp. 426, 447.

50 Ibid., p. 433.

51 Ibid., p. 442.

52 Ibid., p. 460.

53 See e.g. Barth, Karl, Der Römerbrief, 2nd edn (Munich: Kaiser, 1922), pp. 218–19Google Scholar; Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Creation and Fall, DBWE 3 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2004), pp. 111–12Google Scholar.

54 Barth, CD III/3, pp. 463, 472–5.

55 Polanus, A., Syntagma Theologiae Christianae (Hanover, 1624), V.12 Google Scholar.

56 Mastricht, P. van, Theoretico-practica Theologia (Utrecht and Amsterdam, 1687)Google Scholar, III.vii.4.

57 Curiously, Calvin seems to suggest that the service of humanity is in fact the angels’ primary function, not their service to God. So, e.g., he says that the angelic delivery of God's bounty towards us is the thing about angels ‘on which the Scriptures especially insist’ (emphasis added). Also, that the ‘one point . . . that we can hold for certain’ is that the angels are deployed by God for the protection of the elect. Institutes, I.xiv.6, 9.

58 Barth, CD III/3, p. 514 (KD III/3, p. 603).

59 Ibid., p. 477.

60 Mangina, Joseph L., Karl Barth: Theologian of Christian Witness (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), p. 104 Google Scholar.

61 Barth, CD III/3, p. 478 (KD III/3, p. 560).

62 Calvin, Institutes, I.xiv.11.

63 Barth, CD III/3, p. 478 (emphasis added).

64 Barth, Unterricht, p. 326. See also Wood, ‘Acute Embarrassment’, p. 332.

65 Jüngel, Eberhard, Gottes Sein ist im Werden (Tübingen: JCB Mohr, 1967), p. 39 Google Scholar.

66 Barth, CD III/3, p. 496 (emphasis added; KD III/3, p. 580).

67 Ibid., p. 484.

68 Ibid., pp. 490–1.

69 On Zechariah 1, Calvin comments: ‘We must remember what I have already said, that this chief angel was the Mediator and the Head of the Church; and the same is Jehovah, for Christ, as we know, is God manifested in the flesh. There is then no wonder that the Prophet should indiscriminately call him angel and Jehovah, he being the Mediator of the Church, and also God. He is God, being of the same essence with the Father; and Mediator, having already undertaken his Mediatorial office, though not then clothed in our flesh, so as to become our brother; for the Church could not exist, nor be united to her God without a head. We hence see that Christ, as to his eternal essence, is said to be God, and that he is called an angel on account of his office, that is, of a Mediator.’ See Calvin, John, Zechariah, Malachi, vol. 5 of Commentaries on the Twelve Minor Prophets, trans. Owen, J. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2009), p. 57 Google Scholar.

70 Noll, Angels of Light, p. 173.

71 Waldrop, Charles T., Karl Barth's Christology: Its Basic Alexandrian Character (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1984), p. 37 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72 Barth, CD III/3, pp. 487–8.

73 Ibid., p. 485.

74 Ibid., p. 493.

75 See Hunsinger, How to Read Karl Barth, p. 76.

76 Importantly, whereas the Bible exists as a witness in the very possibility of error and fallibility (Barth, CD I/2, pp. 530–1), the angelic witness is pure witness that, precisely because it is non-autonomously obedient, is by definition free of any error.

77 Barth, CD I/2, pp. 495–7, 507–9.

78 Barth, Karl, The Göttingen Dogmatics: Instruction in the Christian Religion, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991), p. 59 Google Scholar.

79 McCormack, Bruce L., Karl Barth's Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), pp. 339–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

80 Hunsinger, How to Read Karl Barth, p. 77.

81 Ibid., p. 78.

82 Barth, Göttingen Dogmatics, pp. 149–50.

83 Barth, CD III/3, pp. 496–7 (KD III/3, p. 581).