Questioning Barth’s Trinity

A summary of Barth’s Trinitarian theology, mostly in the form of brief questions and answers. The exercise is expositional, not critical; my answers would not be the same as Barth’s at every point. The page numbers in parenthesis below are from Church Dogmatics I.1.

1. Why does he discuss Trinity here, at the beginning, in the doctrine of revelation? We can’t discuss revelation without asking what God is being revealed.

2. How is revelation connected to the nature of God? The fact of revelation and nature of that revelation show the kind of God we’re talking about.

3. Summary of Triune revelation: God reveals (Father); God is revelation (Son); God makes revelation effective (Spirit).

4. Who reveals? This is the same question as “What does God do?” and “What does He effect?” These are all questions about the character of God.

5. What does he say about the Bible as Word? Scripture is only indirectly identical with Word of God, as proclamation is also. The Word of God is Jesus.

6. How is the form of revelation related to God’s Lordship? God reveals Himself, specifically as Lord, and the form revelation takes shows that He’s Lord, because it reveals that He remains in control of His revelation. Revelation demonstrates the self-sufficiency and freedom of God as Lord.

7. Revelation is the root of doctrine of the Trinity, but not identical to the doctrine. The doctrine is analysis of the fact of revelation. The Bible doesn’t present the doctrine of the Trinity in so many words, doesn’t deal directly with later errors. But it’s the root.

8. What does Barth make of the “Name” theology of the OT? It shows that Israel must know God a “second time,” not only as hidden God but as revealed God. To know the name is to know God as partner in covenant (317-18).

9. How is the freedom of God connected to Trinity? God is free to be unlike himself (320). God takes form in the Son, but even in form is free to reveal or not (321). God is form, and yet utterly free.

10. What does he mean by saying that God is a stranger? God’s strangeness manifests His holiness. Holiness makes God a stranger even when He’s among us, even when he’s our neighbor (322-3). This is part of God’s sovereign freedom.

11. In what sense is God invisible? It is not a metaphysical principle. God is invisible because He is active God, and thus never enveloped by a medium.

12. Why does he deny that revelation is historically demonstrable? He’s thinking of history as neutral observation and scientific analysis. Revelation is not open to such inquiry (325).

13. What does he say about historical errors in Scripture? He qualifies by saying they are errors by “standards of modern historiography,” and says the Bible has no “interest” in this kind of accuracy. He adds that the fact that Scripture makes such statements points to the historical character of revelation (326).

14. Is the Bible myth? No. Myth tells truth in general, not historical events (327).

15. What does he mean by his veiling/unveiling metaphor? It is not based on a general principle, but known in the actual occurrence of revelation. God shows Himself, yet remains hidden. This indicates there are two persons. Man does respond, which is the work of the Spirit. God’s freedom to take form and yet to remain free is the first difference in God (Son). His freedom to be God to a specific man is the second difference (Spirit) (331).

16. What does he think of the vestigia tradition? He doesn’t like it. Why not? As Barth sees it, it attempts to find a different root for the Trinity than revelation. It is based on the notion of analogia entis , a residual likeness between God and creation despite fall It traces Trinity without revelation. Theology turns to cosmology (334-5).

17. He affirms the vestigia if it does not attempt to explain Trinity by world but world by Trinity (341).

18. What is the true vestigium Trinitatis ? It is what proclamation is in our lives. God present in revelation creates a vestigium (347).

19. What does Barth say about “persons”? Persons are repetitions of the one essence, not three personalities, but three repetitions of the single I (351).

20. Why does Barth say that Trinitarianism denies either God’ revelation or His unity? It compromises revelation because the revelation is different from the revealer; it compromises unity if person is subordinated to person (352).

21. Why is the Trinity the only true monotheism? Because only the Triune God is capable of revealing Himself. Other systems say that a subordinate being reveals God (353).

22. Unity includes distinction and order, rather than excluding (355).

23. What are his worries about “person”? (355f). He believes there is no final answer to “three what?” questions. He worries that 19 ^th -century ideas of personality press in direction of tritheism, and condemns the way neo-Protestantism takes refuge in Sabellianism (356-8).

24. What is his formulation of “threeness” of God? God is one in three modes of being (359).

25. The three modes of being are derived from three modes of relation in revelation (363).

26. What does Barth think about perichoresis? The three modes of being pass over and permeate one another; confirms the distinction of the modes; also affirms the unity – none is considered an individual (370).

27. What is the relation of act and being in God? The work of God is His essence. Though work is essence, we must distinguish essence as such from work. His work is free grace, a decision. God gives Himself in act yet remains free. For this reason, He is incomprehensible (371).

28. Are the distinctions in modes of being equivalent to distinctions in revelation? No. That would be tritheistic. There is analogy between economy and ontology, but we cannot go further than analogy. We cannot identify comprehensible distinctions with the incomprehensible distinctions in God (372-3).

29. What is the doctrine of appropriations? God’s acts are acts of Trinity, yet appropriated to one person or another (373f).

30. Is the dogma of the Trinity a betrayal of the Bible? No, it is a development. The Bible is root of dogma. We are the same church as the church of Nicea (376).

31. How does subordinationism lose God? It makes Thou an It. Revelation becomes a creature, not Lord. It makes God into something over which we can exercise control. If the Thou is an It, He is not Lord (381).

32. How does modalism lose God and revelation? There is a god beyond God, who is never revealed. The God revealed is not the true God (382).

33. What are the two lies about God set aside by revelation? That God is at our disposable and that God is indifferent to us. In fact, God is Lord, yet claims us with the same absoluteness (384).

34. What is the goal of which Jesus is the way? The Father (386).

35. How is the Father Lord of Life and Death? He challenges man, doesn’t affirm. He is not identical to our will to live. Yet, He turns death into a frontier to life (388).

36. Why is the affirmation of the Fatherhood of God not natural theology? It’s revealed. It’s grace. Father is not God-in-general but Father of Son (391).

37. How does the Trinity ground creation? There is an event in God which virtue of which God can be revealed as Creator and Father: the begetting of the Son. The fact that He can set Himself in distinction from Himself is the root of creation (393).

38. What does Barth have to say about the unity of the opera ad extra ? All of God does all God does, but the “modes” are still distinct (396).

39. What are the two main Christological errors? Ebionitism, which says Christ is the apotheosis of man. Docetism, which says Jesus is a personification of a general truth (402-3).

40. How does Barth reconcile the synoptics and John? Synoptics emphasize that God is in Jesus; John that God is in Jesus (404).

41. What is the miracle of the incarnation? Not chiefly finitum non capax infiniti , but homo peccator non capax verbi divini (407).

42. What is the relation of creation and revelation? Not identical. Revelation is “an inconceivably new work” beyond creation (410).

43. What does Barth mean by “antecedently in Himself”? Why is it important? God is prior to His work, and only that secures His freedom and Lordship. Modernist Protestantism denies this, treating it as an untheological metaphysical speculation. Barth says it prevents speculation because it affirms the freedom of God. Without the “antecedently” God is limited by man. “Antecedently” means that God for us is grace, and without this grace is destroyed and so is faith (415ff).

44. Must say both that Son is for us , and that He is Son “antecedently in Himself.”

45. Does Barth affirm the eternal generation of the Son? Yes. Why? The Son didn’t come into being in time, didn’t come into being within the created world. “Begotten” says the truth, but inappropriately. All father-son relations have root in the Father-Son. This is the divine mystery (432-3).

46. What does Barth say about God and time? The eternal generation includes time, but not something “taken for granted.” Rather, time rooted in the eternal generation makes time a gift of grace (426-7).

47. What does he think about “light from light”? It is not vestigium , not trying to say that there’s a light that kindles and a light kindled. It is an inadequate image (429).

48. The Word that reveals God to us is the same Word by which the Father knows Himself (435).

49. What is the value of homoousios ? It is anti-Arian, and safeguards against idea that Son is a demi-god. It safeguards against polytheism (439).

50. What does Barth say about the Son’s role in creation? He is the mediator of creation (442).

51. What does Barth mean by saying that the Spirit is the “subjective” side of revelation? Spirit is added to the “givenness” of revelation, and makes belief real. The Spirit opens man to revelation. The Spirit is God’s freedom to be Himself present from within, the Yes of God not only for us, to us, but in us (449-51, 453).

52. Spirit is not beyond Christ, but comes through Christ and in Christ.

53. If Christ is a demi-god, then faith is a human possibility. If Christ is God Himself, faith has to be God’s work too.

54. The Spirit remains Lord. He is the guarantee identical to God Himself, and that means we need not grasp at what we think is a more certain guarantee in experience (465).

55. What is grace? The Holy Spirit received (466).

56. Spirit too is antecedently in se the Spirit (467).

57. What does Barth make of the neuter of pneuma? The Spirit is neuter in sense of distinct, also neuter in the sense of relation (469).

58. What is the Spirit “antecedently in Himself”? He is the act of communion, impartation, love, gift. This is why he can be so in revelation (470-1).

59. Why can’t the Spirit be part of natural theology? We know God as Creator only through revelation, through the Spirit. The Spirit is known only on the basis of revelation in faith (472).

60. What does “procession” mean? The Spirit is not a creature. The Spirit is different from Son. We can’t tell the difference between procession and generation, nor describe it. We maintain the distinction, and confess ignorance (473-5).

61. Does Barth affirm the filioque ? Yes. Despite the unusual circumstances of its addition, we should accept it. Why? It affirms the equality of Father and Son. It affirms that we encounter God Himself in His revelation. It shows that the ontology corresponds to the economy. Without procession from the Son, the Spirit has no objective ground or content in God (477-8, 481).