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Two Early Reformed Catechisms, The Threefold Office, and The Shape of Karl Barth's Christology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Phil Butin
Phil Butin
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203 Belle Street Oxford, NC 27565U.S.A.
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Extract

Together, Calvin's Geneva Catechism and the Heidelberg Catechism had an exceptional influence on Karl Barth's theology. Barth seems neither to have learned these catechisms as a child nor taught them in his own confirmation classes as a pastor. But as a theologian, he later developed a particular and persistent interest in both.1

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , May 1991 , pp. 195 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1991

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References

1 Busch, Eberhard, Karl Barth, tr. Bowden, J., Philadephia 1975, 31, 55, 64, 126–129, 135, 281–6,299, 342–4.Google Scholar

2 Volumes IV. 1, 1V.2, IV.3.1, IV.3.2, translated by G. W. Bromiley, Edinburgh 1956, 1958, 1961,1962.

3 Cf. the 1938 lectures on the Heidelberg Catechism for teachers of religion, published as ‘Einführung in den Heidelberger Katechismus’, in Theotogische Studien, Heft 63, Zürich 1960, and the 1947 summer lectures at Bonn, published as Die christliche Lehrenach dem Heidelberger Kaiechismus, München 1949Google Scholar (E.T. Leaming Jesus Christ through the Heidelberg Catechism, tr. Guthrie, Shirlie, Grand Rapids 1968).Google Scholar

Barth's 1945 lectures on the Apostles' Creed according to Calvin's Geneva Catechism were published in French as La confession de foi de l'Église, Neuchtel 1946 (E.T. The Faith of the Church: A Commentary on the Apostles' Creed according to Calvin's Catechism, translated by Vahanian, Gabriel, New York 1958)Google Scholar. Eberhard Busch provides helpful descriptions of the original contexts of all three groups of lectures in Karl Barth, 286, 300, 344–45.

4 Francois Wendel, Calvin, tr. P. Mairet, Durham 1987r (1950), 79–80. The French and Latin originals are published in Corpus Reformatorum 34, 1–160. The munus triplex is treated on pages 18–24. We will quote from Torrance, T. F., tr. and ed., The School of Faith, New York 1959Google Scholar. The exposition of the threefold office is found on 12–14. Cf. Instruction in Faith, tr. Fuhrmann, P. T., London 1949, 47–48Google Scholar, which employs the more traditional munus duplex of king and priest.

5 Cf.the discussion in Blaser, Klauspeter, ‘Calvins Lehrevon den drei Ämtern Christi,’ Theologische Studien 105, Zürich, 1970.Google Scholar

6 Otto Weber thinks this important enough to say, ‘The emphasis on the “for us” is the central theme of all that Calvin has to say about the “office” of Christ. Nothing happens here “for itself” but everything is “for us.” Soteriology is nothing other than Christology properly understood and accepted.” Foundations of Dogmatics, Vol. II, tr. D. Guder, Grand Rapids 174.

7 The order which Calvin adopts here in setting forth the threefold office may simply owe to an unreflective addition of the office of prophet to the medieval and Lutheran munusduplex (king, then priest) oltheprior Instruction in Faith (p. 47). See Jansen, Frederick, Calvin's Doctrine of the Work of Christy, London 1956, 36–42Google Scholar. Later, Calvin settled on the order of prophet-king-priest (Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. McNeill, J. T., Philadelphia 1960, II. 15).Google Scholar

8 Burchill, C. J., ‘On the Consolation of a Christian Scholar: Zacharius Ursinus (1534–83) and the Reformation in Heidelberg’ Jorunal of Ecclesiastical History, 37:4 (1986) 570.Google Scholar

9 Heidelberg's group authorship was also important to Baith, see Learruing Jesus Christ, 23–4.

10 The Heidelberg Calechism, 1563–1963. 400th Anniversary Edition, Phila. 1962, questions 31 and 32. I have also consulted the German in Schaff, Philip, Creeds of the Churches, Vol. III, 307–355Google Scholar. Heidelberg uses what would later become known as the ‘order of execution’, regarded in some strands of Reformed orthodoxy as a some what crudely chronological description of Christ's working out of redemption from the perspective of his humanity. See Heppe, Heinrich, Reformed Dogmatics, tr. Thompson, G. T., Grand Rapids 1978r, 453–454Google Scholar. Heidelberg's intent, however, is simply to present Christ's work under a comprehensive dogmatic rubric encompassing his revealing, justifying, and sanctifying roles. In this, it was to provide important inspiration for Barm.

11 In his Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism (tr. G. W. Willard, Cincinnati 176–180) Ursinus develops the idea that we are ‘members’ of Christ biblically, in terms of the relationship between the head and the members of a body. He emphasizes that in the Holy Spirit believers participate in Christ's anointing, and as such, in all his gifts and in each aspect of the threefold office.

12 Though she does not concentrate specifically on the Geneva and Heidelberg Catechisms, the comprehensive influence of the threefold officeon Barth's Christology has recently been noted and criticized (from the standpoint of Luther's earlier ‘twofold office’) by Bornkamm, Karin in ‘Die reformatorische Lehre vom Amt Christi und ihre Umformung durch Karl Barth,’ Zeilschnft für Theologie und Kirche, Beiheft 6, Tübingen 1986.Google Scholar

13 Dogmatics IV.1: 79–128.

14 Dogmatics IV.I: 128.

15 Based on Dogmaties IV.1: 128–154.

16 Dogmatics IV.1: 135.

17 Dogmatics IV.1: 145–144, 147.

18 Dogmatics IV.1: 145.

19 Dogmatics IV.1: 211.

20 Dogmatics IV.1: 273. Bromiley's excellent summary of this complicated section is from Introduction to the Theobgy of Karl Barth, Grand Rapids 1979, 182.Google Scholar

21 Dogmatics IV.1: 642.

22 Dogmatics IV.1: 274–283. ‘The older Protestant dogmatics did in fact give to the doctrine of the work of Jesus Christ the title munus Christi sacerdotale when they treated it under the aspect of the pro nobis as we havedone in this section…’ (274–5). T. F. Torrance makes a creative attempt to go beyond Barth in expressing the reconciling work of Christ in explicit terms of the priestly office in Royal Priesthood, Edinburgh 1955.

23 IV.2:155.

24 Learning Jesus Christ, 126–127. While Barth does not discuss san ctification specifically in terms of ‘righteousness’ in Dogmatics IV.2, paragraph 66, the importance of Heidelberg's influence in this regard is borne out in the inspiration it gives Barth here (cf. 587, and especially 598, where he again quotes Heidelberg [questions 86 and 91]) in summing his argument about good works.

25 Dogmatics IV.1: 137 ff., 527.

26 Dogmatics IV.1: 137. For my larger point, see the extended discussion of the prophetic office in IV.3.1: 3–18.

27 Dogmatics IV.3.1: 8.

28 Dogmatics IV.3.l: 13. But cf. his criticism of Heidelberg in Learning Jesus Christ (126–127), where he notes that after question 32, ‘the catechism has very little to say about the prophetic office‘. He proceeds to spell out in detail its rich unfolding of the implications of both the priestly and the royal offices. James Torrance takes this point a step further than Barth with regard to Calvin himself in ‘The Vicarious Humanity and Priesthood of Christ’, pp. 82–84, Calvininus Ecclesiae Doctor, ed.W.H.Neuser, Kampen, 1978. He argues that even Calvin, who initiated the paradigmatic use of the threefold office, continued to subordinate the prophetic office to those of king and priest throughout his writings.

29 Dogmatics IV.S.l: 14–18.

30 The Faith of the Church, 55ff., cf. Dogmatics IV.1: 123f.

31 The Faith of the Church, 57–63.

32 The Faith of the Church, 56.

33 Barth is fully aware that the intention of the orthodox Reformed doctrine of the states of Christ is precisely to sympathetically define, organize, and systematize the historical movement recounted in the Apostle's Creed. Orthodoxy does not fail to recognize the concrete historical nature of the gospel events. Rather, Barth's concern is that the orthodox penchant for defining, organizing, and systematizing the movement into two ‘states’ — rather than recounting or simply telling the whole story in narrative fashion — tends to minimize the movement which is inherent in and essential to the particular historicality of the gospel itself. When, for example, in Heppe's Reformed Dogmatics, 488–509 (which Barth used extensively to gain access to the Reformed orthodox dogmaticians) the ‘static’ conceptual category of ‘states’ is imposed upon the essentially ‘moving’ scheme of the Apostle's Creed, a certain impression of alienness and strain is unavoidable.

Richard Muller's criticisms of Barth's ‘departure from the tradition’ (‘Directions in the Study of Barth's Christology’, Westminster Theolagical Journal, 48 [1986] 119–134) deny (but do not refute) the contemporary dogmatic necessity of Barth's attempt to take history more seriously than did many of the post-Reformation Reformed orthodox.

34 Church Dogmatics IV:1, pp. 122–128.

35 Faith of the Church, 69.

36 Cf. Kelsey, David, The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology, Phila. 1975, 39–55Google Scholar. This is especially evident in Barth's sections on ‘The Way of the Son of God into the Far Country’ (IV.1, 157–210), and ‘The Royal Man’ (IV.2,154–264). For the latter section, cf. the alternative discussion of Jüngel, Eberhard in ‘The Royal Man’, Karl Barth: A Theological Legacy, tr. Paul, G., Phila. 1986.Google Scholar

37 Corpus Reformatorum, v. 54, Calvini Opera, v. VI, pp. 25–26.

38 Faith of the Church, 87. In his recommendation that this obvious inadequacy in the Reformed tradition (and its preferred creedl) be addressed through expansion of the ‘reference’ of Christ's passion, cross, and resurrection, Barth is significantly in continuity with the Heidelberg Catechism, which carefully emphasizes that the life of Christ is subsumed under the word ‘suffered’ (Question 37).

39 Faith of the Church, 96 f.

40 Dogmatics IV.2, 294ff.

41 Dogmatics IV.2, 336–348.

42 Geneva Catechism, Q. 36; cf. Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 31.

43 Institutes III.1.

44 The Faith of the Church, 55–56. But Cf. Barth's critical appraisal of Book III of the Institutes in Dogmatics IV.3.2, 551ff.

45 Leaming Jesus Christ, 90.

46 Leaming Jesus Christ, 25–26.

47 Weber shows impressive insight into this problem when he points out that the distinctively Reformed way to give just prominence to the pervasiveness of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in dogmatics is not to treat it separately, but to treat it continuously and integrally througnoutall the other headings of dogmatics (Foundaftions of Dogmatics, Vol. II, 131–135, 240–243). Both Calvin and Barth follow this pattern.

48 For examples, see Dogmatics IV.1: 777 ff.; IV.2:499, 535–613,; IV.3.2:573, 670ff, The Christian Life, tr. Bromiley, G. W., Grand Rapids 1981, 39–46.Google Scholar

49 Dogmatics IV.1: 147.

50 Dogmatics IV.1: 147–148.