Barth attempts to offer a Biblical Angelology. In the process he surveys some of the most primary developments on an angelology, in the history, as those were offered by Dionysius and Thomas Aquinas. Just on that level his treatment is interesting and rewarding. But in the midst of that, since he is slavishly beholden to the Protestant ‘Scripture Principle,’ he also identifies what I also take to be primary to a truly Christian presentation on the angels. As is typical, especially with reference to my own interests, Barth rightly recognizes the role that a prolegomena/hermeneutic will end up having on how a respective thinker will arrive at their veritable conclusion on what in fact angels (and demons) are. This a priori commitment to whatever hermeneutic someone deploys in their attempt to understand the supraphysical verities in God’s world, will in the end determine whether or not said thinker actually has a point of contact with God’s world or not.
In the following passage the reader will observe how Barth believes a philosophical/speculative attempt at developing a doctrine of the angels, as is present in Aquinas’ guiding habit, ends up providing something highly interesting and imaginative to contemplate; but beyond that, for Barth, this speculation only generates a notion of ‘angelness’ that only can get as high as the virtuoso’s genius. That is, Barth believes, for example, in Thomas’ attempt to prove the existence of angels, that insofar that he stays correspondent within his self-referencing universe, that Thomas does indeed offer something on “the angels” that entails a coherence. But that’s what makes it something of interest to Barth, rather than something of substance (pun intended).
It cannot be contested that in a specific sphere and on a specific assumption proof is here given of the existence of a specific object interesting to the one who conducts the proof. It might be asked whether this sphere is real, and if so accessible, and if so able to be marked off in this way and approached with this assumption. It might be asked whether the proof furnished on this assumption and in this sphere is really conclusive and convincing either in detail or as a whole. But if we assume that everything is in order in this respect, and that Thomas has legitimately proved what he really could prove, there can be no doubt that with this assumption (or with the criticism or partial or total rejection of his demonstration) we are merely making philosophical and not theological decisions. Whether there are intellectual substances without bodies, and whether their existence can be proved in this or some other way, may be a question which is interesting and important in the sphere of philosophy. It may be one which can be discussed and even decided in this sphere. It may even be one which is decisive. But it is purely philosophical. On the basis of the Word of God attested in Holy Scripture we are not asked whether there are or are not substances of this kind, nor are we required to prove their existence in some way. If there are, and if their existence can be proved, this does not lead us to angels in the biblical sense of the term. And if there are not, and their existence cannot be proved, this is no argument against angels in the Christian sense. What are called angels in the Bible are not even envisaged in Thomas’ proof of the existence of these substantiae separatae [distinct substances], let alone is anything said for or against their existence, or anything meaningful states about them at all, with the eight proofs. And what Thomas later constructed upon the demonstrated existence of these substantiae separatae is very different from a doctrine of angels in the Christian sense of the term. In his demonstration Thomas has given us philosophy and not theology, and he has done so far more exclusively than Dionysius. He does so occasionally refer to Holy Scripture, and therefore it may be asked whether he does not incidentally and in some sense contrary to his own intention make some contribution to theological knowledge. But fundamentally and as a whole he simply offers us a classical example of how not to proceed in this matter.[1]
In nuce, if the Christian is going to attempt to offer a genuinely Christian doctrine of angels, they will, as Barth so rightly presses, be committed to the biblical categories rather than the philosophical ones. And of course, it is this methodology that funds the whole of Barth’s style of a confessional trinitarian-dialectical christologically conditioned way of doing theology from the reality of the Bible. The Christian philosophers among us would sneer at this; the classical theologians, the ‘Great Traditioners’ in our midst, would mock; how ironic.
Stay Biblical my friends.
[1] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/3 §50–51 [393] The Doctrine of Creation: Study Edition (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 104.