Friedrich Schleiermacher, an early 19th century theologian, argued the relevance and
essential need of theology for human nature. He expressed that there
is a human feeling of total dependence on God, but others disagreed.
Ludwig Feuerbach, philosopher, anthropologist, atheist and materialist, claimed on the other hand that theology is
anthropology in disguise. He saw the claims about God as mental
projections of theologians making idols in the image of man. He
argued that it would be better to focus on attainable needs in the
temporal world. It was Karl Barth, a powerful theologian of the 20th
century, who challenged Schleiermacher's influence and answered
Feuerbach's challenge with theology that showed God’s revelation in
Christ, or 'from above, ' rather than man's consciousness or some
human feeling. It seems, he all but severed the human realm from the God realm and in some unintended way supported the influence of' 'the Enlightenment ideas which have seriously challenged
the place of religion in the public square. Even Romanticism, which
emphasized self expression and human feelings against rationalism,
still perceived religious dogma and moralistic authority as a
hindrance to 'authentic freedom.'1
Obviously Feuerbach could not see
anything beyond the temporal and God as human projection, and Barth? Barth claimed three forms of revelation to disprove Feuerbach:
a) Divine word has became
incarnate which we also know as Jesus of Nazareth
b) Prophetic witness of Scripture
c) In the preaching of the church
c) In the preaching of the church
My issues are with the second and third
claims of Barth. Although I highly value the integrity of the Bible and its
validity, some parts of scripture have been translated too often, as
well as mistranslated to be a truly divine revelation. You have
probably seen, in one of my other blog entries, my stand that God did
not write the Bible, but inspired humans. I do think that Biblical
Scripture is an inspired text, which guides us and teaches us about
God. Nevertheless, we also must use our brain and see that not all is
perfect. The other issue is that Barth further, in his writings, puts the church on a divine level if the preaching of the church is a revelation. Pastors are obviously inspired as they prepare for their sermons and pray for enlightenment, however they are human. How that
revelation exactly happens he does not make clear, particularly since Barth's God is so far away. Revelation is not confined to only
one form, such as preaching. It happens with the help of the Holy Spirit, and in various forms, something
Barth does not say.
Barth's claim, 'The power of God can be
detected neither in the world of nature nor in the souls of men. It
must be confounded with any high, exalted, force, known or knowable” expresses a strange contradiction. He acknowledges that humans have a soul. Soul has always been seen as an essence that connects us to God. Yet Barth claims God cannot be detected in it. With this Barth makes a total separation between God and God's creation.
“Even when God reveals himself to a man of faith, still that man
with faith will confess God unknown to us.”3
It seems Barth puts the word “faith and reveal” in like a wedge
into what should be described much more in depth such as gifts from
the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, whatever revelation there might be, it
seems Barth gets us stuck on the very thought that man just cannot
know God; Finito, end of discussion. All his claims are vague and distant. “In the
Resurrection the new world of the Holy Spirit touches the old world
of the flesh, but touches it as a tangent touches a circle, that is,
without touching it. And because it does not touch it, it touches it
as its frontier – as the new world.”4
So does it touch it or not? Here Barth uses his dialectic approach (yes and no), even though
hailed by some, it shows that he just really did not know but was eager to prove his position which I am not sure was even clear to him.
Barth never uses the word “experience.”
his language is always illusive such as 'revelation' which he never
defines or 'divine confrontation' which in itself is a paradox since
God is not knowable according to him. It is true one cannot know God
with the outer senses. One can only know God through inner senses,
which is through the gifts given to us, may they be visions, dreams,
the ability to heal, prophecy or others.
“Martin Luther King Junior points out
that we can find in Job 11:16 'Canst thou find out the Almighty unto
perfection'? No, but we can know God imperfectly. Exodus 33:20
states: 'Thou canst not see my face' but 'thou shalt see my back.'
God is revealed nonetheless even if we can only see part of God or a
glimpse. Scripture mentions in various ways that we can know God to
some degree. Some of this knowledge is shown to us through the experiences of the minor and major prophets. The questions needs to be asked: 'How did Barth know so
much about an Unknown God?'”5
Do not get me wrong, Barth was a great theologian and thinker, but as
with all great thinkers, philosophers and theologians we make the
mistake to just rehash and swallow over and over what they told us instead of
asking questions, dissecting their ideas and then listen to our own insights which often come through prayer as well as the intellect.
Let me move on to a couple of 19th/20th century theologies which also in their own respect did not help much to further the acknowledgement of dreams and visions as God's gift. Liberation theology was a radical movement and answer to great injustices particularly in South America. That's where this movement started. Its stand was that the church should act to bring about social change and should ally itself with the working class. Priests and ministers got involved in politics, trade unions as well as violent revolutionary movements. Pope John Paul II disagreed with these movements and saw it as a fusion of Christianity and Marxism. He closed Catholic organization that taught liberation theology and rebuked the movement’s activists. He did not mean the Church was not going to be the voice of the oppressed. However, it should not do it by partisan politics or revolutionary violence. I think ministers need to be the voice for the poor. However, getting engaged in violence amongst other things shows that we are taking the claim that we are Christ's feet and hands too far, namely thinking that it doesn't matter what we do, Christ will agree because we are trying to help. I disagree with that notion. Since dreams and visions were disregarded now for so long, they were not considered, no one even probably asked. Had there been divine visions and revelations anyone would have taken seriously, some of the reasoning in liberation theology just might have been different all together.
Let me move on to a couple of 19th/20th century theologies which also in their own respect did not help much to further the acknowledgement of dreams and visions as God's gift. Liberation theology was a radical movement and answer to great injustices particularly in South America. That's where this movement started. Its stand was that the church should act to bring about social change and should ally itself with the working class. Priests and ministers got involved in politics, trade unions as well as violent revolutionary movements. Pope John Paul II disagreed with these movements and saw it as a fusion of Christianity and Marxism. He closed Catholic organization that taught liberation theology and rebuked the movement’s activists. He did not mean the Church was not going to be the voice of the oppressed. However, it should not do it by partisan politics or revolutionary violence. I think ministers need to be the voice for the poor. However, getting engaged in violence amongst other things shows that we are taking the claim that we are Christ's feet and hands too far, namely thinking that it doesn't matter what we do, Christ will agree because we are trying to help. I disagree with that notion. Since dreams and visions were disregarded now for so long, they were not considered, no one even probably asked. Had there been divine visions and revelations anyone would have taken seriously, some of the reasoning in liberation theology just might have been different all together.
Now, I have no way to substantiate
what I am going to say except by my own gift of vision. However, when
we are stuck in one awful thing or another our short sightedness does
not leave us any option but fall into despair or resort to violence.
Moral training will keep us most likely from becoming savages. If we
are religious people, a belief in God and prayer is the one thing that will get us unstuck
even if we have no other way to know what will happen. However, there
is a vaster vision, God's vision, and sometimes God will show a human
that vision. Once privy to such insight a person gains more
understanding and can act differently having seen the larger picture.
However, since dreams and visions are disregarded they cannot guide
humanity at large now. Those who have visions will not be believed.
In desperate situations, persons will engage in unwholesome acts if
there is no source to draw on. God-given visions and dreams can be an
important guiding source.
Another theology disregarding
revelation is natural theology. It seeks knowledge of God, the soul,
immortality, and natural law through reason and the observation of
natural processes unaided by revelation. I am not convinced that
reason will be able to prove the existence of God, divine purpose and
the soul. “A modern view of natural theology suggests that reason
does not so much seek to supply a proof for the existence of God, as
to provide a coherent form drawn from the insights of religion to
pull together the best of human knowledge from all areas of human
activity. In this understanding, natural theology attempts to relate
science, history, morality and the arts in an integrating vision of
the place of humanity in the universe. This vision, an integrating
activity of reason, is religious to the extent it refers to an
encompassing reality that is transcendent in power and value. Natural
theology is hence not a prelude to faith but a general world view
within which faith can have an intelligible place.”.6
Therefore, religion up to now was not intelligent? Natural theology
pulls everything together under the sun within reason. However, it
does so by leaving out any other (transcending or supernatural) wisdom and knowledge. It declares
that which humans pulled together under this system, a religion.
Encompassing or not, how is it transcending without acknowledging our Creator? Transcending because we
evolve? I suppose, if we think that reason is the only thing that
makes us intelligent, then that is all true. Natural theology might
have its place, namely to make sense of religious claims in the world
of reason. However, there are more ways to be intelligent than reason
alone. God's revelation can and does use other intelligences to break
into the human world. Reason seems to be closed to such intelligences.
SOURCES;
1Http://www.scribd.com/doc/30276734/Karl-Barth-Neo-Orthodox-Revelation
(accessed on 7/2/2013)
2Http://www.era.lib.ac.uk/handle/1842/5524
(accessed 7/09/2013)
6Www.giffordlectures.org/theology.sap
(accessed 7/03/2013)
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