Barth’s theology is often tagged as postmetaphysical in line with something like Kant’s, and more to the point, post-Kantian mediating theologians like Albrecht Ritschl, Wilhelm Hermann et al. But this is overwrought in the sense that Barth might be a trained modern theologian, nevertheless he is conditioned more by his reliance on the antique tradition found in the patristic past, and into the modern post reformed orthodox development of Protestant theology in Western Europe. Because of his influences we get a smattering, as Bruce McCormack might say, of a Barth who is both Orthodox and Modern.
In this post we will look at how Barth wants to think about the so-called Logos asarkos. This becomes controversial for some, in the sense that various “classical” theologians believe that Barth wants to negate the notion of a Logos asarkos (‘Word without flesh’). This might be problematic if in fact this was what Barth was attempting to do. But what must be factored in, for Barth, is that his theological prolegomenon is one that is, of course, Christ conditioned all the way down. As such, when he does theology, it is Christ alone, within the triune life, who determines his theological articulations and conclusions. When it comes to the Logos asarkos, even though Barth finds it necessarily abstract, his doctrine of election, as that is informed by the patristic an/ -enhypostasis, attempts to fill out this ‘Word of God without flesh’ in such a way that the Logos ensarkos (‘Word enfleshed’), as the ground and reality for all of creation, as its inner reality in the covenant of grace (i.e., God’s triune life for the world), becomes determinative of the anteriority of the Logos asarkos; but only as that is logically grounded in God’s free election to be incarnate (Deus incarnandus) for the world in Jesus Christ. As such, the Logos asarkos, for Barth, loses its “abstractness,” insofar that to even think of the Logos in terms of flesh has always already been the condition God had chosen to be, just as sure as He freely chose to create the world to begin with. That is to say, what we get in Barth’s thinking on a Logos asarkos is a radically Christ conditioned supralapsarian doctrine of election as the fund.
Because this is such an important matter in Barth’s theology, and because there has been some controversy surrounding it, I want to share the pertinent passage from Barth’s Church Dogmatics in full. We will read this passage, and then I will close with some concluding remarks.
But now we may and must ask further whether it was the eternal Son (or eternal Word) of God as such in His pure deity that they had in mind; or whether, more inclusively and more concretely, it was the Son of God as the Son of Man, the Word made flesh. If it was only the former, the Logos asarkos, the “second person” in the Trinity in itself and as such, to whom they referred with their through Him . . . in Him, one can only be astonished at the force with which these expressions so unmistakeably [sic.] point to a specific creative causality of which these expressions appear to speak. As we have seen, the only possible connexion between the eternal Son or Word of God on the one hand and creation on the other is that it is commensurate with and worthy of the Father of the eternal Son, the Speaker of the eternal Word as such, that He should be the Creator in His dealings ad extra. Perhaps the writers of the New Testament wished to say this too. Indeed, there can be no doubt that they did. But was this all they wished to say? If so, they could not have described Jesus Christ as the actual divine ground of creation, as the peculiar creative causality, to which those expressions seem to point. It has to be kept in mind that the whole conception of the Logos asarkos, the “second person” of the Trinity as such, is an abstraction. It is true that it has shown itself necessary to the Christological and trinitarian reflections of the Church. Even to-day it is indispensable for dogmatic enquiry and presentation, and it is often touched upon in the New Testament, though nowhere expounded directly. The New Testament speaks plainly enough about the Jesus Christ who existed before the world was, but always was with a view to the concrete content of the eternal divine will and decree. For this reason it does not speak expressly of the eternal Son or Word as such, but of the Mediator, the One who in the eternal sight of God has already taken upon Himself our human nature, i.e., not of a formless Christ who might well be a Christ-principle or something of that kind, but of Jesus the Christ. The One who according to Heb. 1.3 upholds all things by the Word of His power is also the One who according to the following verse, when He had purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of majesty on high. According to Col. 1.15, He is “the firstborn of every creature,” and, according to v. 14, the One in whom we have redemption, i.e., the forgiveness of sins. According to verse 18, He is the “firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.” How could this be said of the Logos asarkos? We shall misunderstand the whole Johannine Prologue if we fail to see that the sentence The same was in the beginning with God. (Jn. 1.2)—which would otherwise be a wholly unnecessary repetition—points to the person who is the theme of the whole ensuing Gospel, and of whom it is said in v. 14: “the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.” And in just the same way in this event it became historical reality, as the Word incarnate—how else?—this Word was in the beginning, i.e., in the divinely determined counsel with God before the world was. The real basis of creation, permitted and even demanded by the unprecedented continuation in v. 3, that “all things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made,” is that the Word was with God, existing before the world was, and that from all eternity God wanted to see and know and love His only begotten Son as the Mediator—His Word incarnate. It is not difficult to prove that no other meaning can be read into the passages adduced than that they refer to Jesus the Christ, who is certainly very God, but who is also very man. Irenaeus has correctly assessed the meaning of the New Testament (in this respect no other assessment is really possible): Truly the maker of the world is the Word of God: and this is our Lord, who in the last times was made a human being, living in this world, who in His invisible power contains everything that was made and penetrates the whole creation, because the Word of God governs and directs of all things: and for this reason He came to His own. (Adv. o. h. V, 18, 3). Coccejus, too, has rightly assessed the meaning of the New Testament: The foundation of the world is subordinate to the decree of election and must be referred to it. (S. Theol., 1669, 37, 29). He who in the beginning established the heavens and the earth is He who wished to be called the God of Israel, and when He created them, He saw to it that He made the world a theater of the glory of His grace . . . by which He might triumph as by excellent praise (note the quiet but very definite improvement of the expression of Calvin) The creation of the earth was not accomplished without a view to the death of Christ. For since the showing forth of God’s glorious grace in humanity through Christ was God’s chief end in creating humankind, the creation of the earth is reckoned a means to that end, so that the good might have a dwelling-place. For it was not suitable for God to establish the earth as a habitation for sinful humanity, unless that same world were at some time purified by the blood of Christ, who sanctifies and glorifies his elect. For all these reasons it is not inappropriate that the execution of Christ and the creation of the world are linked together (Oecon. Foed., 1693, III, 4, 16). Also J. Wichelhaus (Die Lehre d. hl. Schrift, 1892, 349 f.): “How could God call into existence what is not-God . . . what is in itself dead, obscure transitory? He could not have done so had there not been something in God which in His eternal love He posited outside and before Himself, had there not existed in Him an eternal decree (on p. 352 a divine counsel and covenant of peace which had been formed between Father and Son before the foundation of the world) in which all His perfections were to be revealed (Eph. 1.10, Col. 1.15f). God could not have created a world which He could have loved for its own sake and which could have had life in itself. . .. What God had in view at creation was His Son, the Son of His love, and a Church elected in Him by eternal decree. . .. What God has created in Christ Jesus as a dark world which He willed to enlighten and to fructify, and a poor son of man whom He willed to save.” Or on p. 351 “It was the will and good-pleasure of inexplicable kindness and mercy, the free movement of grace and love, that in His Son, in Christ, God willed to impart His glory to a creature which in itself is dust and ashes; that He willed to exalt the most needy and most helpless creature above all for itself an object of its compassion and kindness.” “The glorification of God’s name in Jesus Christ is accordingly the final goal of creation, so that everything is ordered for this purpose, and everything, be it light or darkness, good or evil, must serve this purpose.” (p. 355).
To sum up, the New Testament passages in question say that the creative wisdom and power of God were in the beginning specifically the wisdom and power of Jesus Christ. For in the first place He was the eternal Son and the Word of God, the whole of divine being revealed and active in creation being His own eternal being. Second, His existence as the Son of God the Father was in some sense the inner divine analogy and justification of creation. Finally and supremely, He was already in the eternal decree of God the Mediator; the Bearer of our human nature; the Humiliated and Exalted as the Bearer of our flesh; a creature and precisely as such loved by God; and in this way the motivating basis of creation. If God willed to give His eternal Son this form and function, and if the Son of God willed to obey His Father in this form and function, this meant that God had to begin to act as Creator, for there could be no restraining His will. Hence, as these passages of the New Testament declare, it is not only God the Father, but in particular the Son Jesus Christ, who is by His own proper strength and efficacy and power the Creator of all things.[1]
Or we might have more briefly just said about the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ that it is, “No longer understood merely as an emergency measure to counteract the effects of sin and evil, the incarnation was the fulfillment of an eternal purpose. The world was made so that Christ might be born.”[2]
Okay, I’ve got to go read my Bible now.
[1] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/1 §41 [054-6] The Doctrine of Creation: Study Edition (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 54-6 [italics mine, representative of the translation or transliteration from the Latin and Greek text to the English].
[2] David Fergusson, Chapter 4: Creation, 76-7 in The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology, edited by John Webster, Kathryn Tanner, and Iain Torrance.