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Speech-act theory to enhance Karl Barth's homiletical postulation of a sermon's ‘revelatory compliance’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2015

Markus Thane
Markus Thane*
Affiliation:
1 Newhaven Grove, Largs, North Ayrshire KA30 8NS, UKmarkus.thane@yahoo.co.uk
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Abstract

Karl Barth's theology is a theology which was born from the pulpit. For Barth the formulation and enactment of the unity of church, theology and proclamation had become an integral part of his life and theological legacy. While Barth taught as professor at the University of Bonn he published his first volume of his Church Dogmatics (CD) with an emphasis on divine revelation. At the time of the publication of CD I, Barth held two seminars on homiletics. The seminar notes were later assembled and turned into a book with the same title. If both works, CD I and Homiletics, are compared side by side a major theological inconsistency becomes apparent. In CD I Barth emphasises that revelation as the ‘Word of God’ remains with God, leaving the divine as the solely acting sovereign. Whereas in Homiletics, Barth talks about a sermon's ‘Offenbarungsmässigkeit’ – a sermon's revelatory compliance. These two postulations are not only in tension but they contradict each other. The underlying problem is that Barth cannot define revelation as a solely divine act which takes place separately and independently of human interaction; by simultaneously asking for a sermon and preachers’ revelatory compliance, as if otherwise God would not be able to reveal himself. This poses the question as to how this inconsistency can be resolved. The underlying problem for Barth was at that time, apparently, upholding both divine revelation and human proclamation without compromising the character of God and the nature of a sermon. A way out of the dilemma can be found if revelation and sermon delivery are reframed and complemented by the philosophical approach of John R. Searle's and John L. Austin's ‘speech-act theory’. ‘Speech act theory’ better appropriates Barth's desire to elevate a homily because of the ‘reality change’ which takes places in the very act of proclamation. In this theory proclamation is understood as a human act bound to God's truth which is creating a ‘new reality’ that opens and expects to have this reality filled and actualised by God's sovereign act of revelation. When proclamation/preaching is interpreted as ‘speech-act theory’, this follows Barth's desire to elevate the human act of the sermon delivery by simultaneously keeping the distinction between the human and divine, which is really worthy to be called a speech event.

Keywords

homileticsKarl Barthproclamationsermonspeech act
Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 68 , Issue 2 , May 2015 , pp. 187 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2015 

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References

1 Webster, John, ‘Introducing Barth’, in Webster, John (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Busch, Eberhard, Karl Barths Lebenslauf: Nach seinen Briefen und autobiografischen Texten (Zürich: TVZ-Verlag, 2005), p. 73Google Scholar.

3 Busch, Karl Barths Lebenslauf, p. 103.

4 The struggle for Barth was not only the theological-ethical approval of war and mass killing but the question whether his teachers’ exegetical and dogmatic assumptions were correct if they led to such conclusions. See Busch, Karl Barths Lebenslauf, p. 93.

5 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics, I/1, ed. Bromiley, Geoffrey W. and Torrance, Thomas F., trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1975), hereafter CD I/1, pp. 4–5Google Scholar.

6 Barth was nearly 70 years old in 1955 when he retired.

7 See Barth, Karl, ‘Predigten 1954–1967’, in Stoevesandt, Hinrich (ed.), Karl Barth Gesamtausgabe, vol. 1, Predigten, 2nd edn (Zürich: TVZ-Verlag, 1981)Google Scholar.

8 ‘How’ and in what respect Barth is considered to be inconsistent with his own approach and definition of revelation will be explained within the next sentences. However, the underlying problem can be formulated as a question, asking how a sermon can comply with revelation when the very act of revelation is reserved to be and remain a solely divine act of God taking place independently of the human act of proclamation. In other words, a sermon cannot secure its compliance with revelation before the act of revelation authenticates the human act of preaching during or respectively after a sermon is delivered.

9 ‘Word of God’ is the divine logos of God who speaks and acts through revelation.

10 Barth, Karl, Homiletik: Wesen und Vorbereitung der Predigt (Zürich: EVZ-Verlag, 1966), EinbandGoogle Scholar.

11 Busch, Karl Barths Lebenslauf, pp. 232–3.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid., p. 232.

14 Ibid., p. 216.

15 Ibid., p. 223.

16 Ibid., p. 225.

17 One semester before his homiletic seminar, Barth lectured on what was going to become CD I/2, showing that he had been pleased with his writing of CD I/1, at least in that he did not think of a revision but felt comfortable to continue his dogmatic work. See Busch, Karl Barths Lebenslau, p. 232.

18 The German Homiletik has very limited information in comparison to its English translation. While the author of this article is not a fan of translation, because the original is the more accurate form, in the case of homiletics, the more detailed insight information of the foreword is of inestimable scholarly value.

19 ‘Studentenmitschriften’ are common at German universities; they become ‘scripts’ which are study material for following semesters.

20 Barth, Karl, Homiletics, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley and Donald E. Daniels (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991), foreword, p. 7Google Scholar.

21 Barth, Homiletics, foreword, p. 7.

22 The following standard and most renowned scholarly works do not mention or refer to Barth's homiletics, Günter Seyfferth nor the presented theology of the ‘Word of God preached’ in its practice: von Balthazar, Hans Urs, The Theology of Karl Barth, trans. John Drury (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1971)Google Scholar; Berkouwer, G. C., The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth, trans. Harry R. Boer (London: Paternoster Press, 1956)Google Scholar; McCormack, Bruce L., Karl Barth's Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development 1909–1936 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Torrance, Thomas F., Karl Barth: An Introduction to his Early Theology, 1910–1931(London: SCM Press, 1962)Google Scholar; Torrance, Thomas F., Karl Barth, Biblical and Evangelical Theologian (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1990)Google Scholar; Webster, John, Barth (London: Continuum, 2nd edn, 2004)Google Scholar, Webster, John, Barth's Earlier Theology: Four Studies (London: T & T Clark International, 2005)Google Scholar; Webster, John (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The only one noting the account of Barth's homily seminar, but without mentioning Seyfferth, is Busch, Eberhard, Karl Barths Lebenslauf: Nach seinen Briefen und autobiografischen Texten (Zürich: TVZ-Verlag, 2005), pp. 232–3Google Scholar.

23 Encyclopaedic German Dictionary German-English ‘Der Große Muret Sanders’, vol. 2, L-Z, ed. Springer, Otto (Berlin: Langenscheidt, 5th edn, 1990), p. 1061Google Scholar.

24 Encyclopaedic German Dictionary German-English ‘Der Große Muret Sanders’, vol. 1, A-K, ed. Springer, Otto (Berlin: Langenscheidt, 5th edn, 1990), p. 661Google Scholar.

25 See Barth, Homiletics, p. 5, and Encyclopaedic German Dictionary, vol. 2, p. 893.

26 English version.

27 Barth, Homiletics, p. 47.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid., p. 51.

30 §8 God in His Revelation, pp. 295–347; §9 The Trinity of God, pp. 348–83, §10 God the Father, pp. 384–98, §11 God the Son, pp. 399–447, §12 God the Holy Spirit, pp. 448–89.

31 The following translations have been made by the author from the German original text, Barth, Karl, Kirchliche Dogmatik, I/1, 7th edn (Zürich: EVZ-Verlag, 1955), hereafter KD I/1, p. 320Google Scholar.

32 KD I/1, §8.2 Die Wurzel der Trinitätslehre, p. 321.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid., pp. 322–3.

36 Ibid., p. 322.

37 Barth states that the deus revelatus is simultaneously the deus absconditus, ibid., p. 338.

38 Ibid., §9.1 Dreiheit in der Einheit, pp. 382–3.

39 Ibid., §9.4 Der Sinn der Trinitätslehre, p. 402.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid., §12.1 Gott als Erlöser, p. 475.

43 Dowden Bradley, ‘Fallacy’, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy (accessed Jan. 2015).

44 Ibid.

45 Ibid.

46 Austin, J. L., How to Do Things with Words, ed. Urmson, J. O. and Shisa, Marins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), ch. 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 Blume, Thomas, ‘Wittgenstein, Ludwig’, in Rehfus, Wulff D. (ed.), Handwörterbuch Philosophie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003), p. 230Google Scholar.

48 Briggs, Richard S., Words in Action: Speech Act Theory and Biblical Interpretation – Toward a Hermeneutic of Self-Involvement (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2001), p. 4Google Scholar.

49 Austin, How to Do Things with Words, pp. 1–4.

50 Ibid.

51 Briggs, Words in Action, pp. 7, 17, 36.

52 Searle, John R., Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), pp. 24–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 Searle, John R. and Vanderveken, Daniel, Foundations of Illocutionary Logic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 182–92Google Scholar.

54 Ibid., pp. 182–92.