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Chapter Two
Creation and Economic Life
Introduction
Our objective in the previous chapter was to discuss
Barth's doctrine
of the Trinity, together with those ideas that enabled us to move
from life
in God to God's actions in history. In this chapter we wish to
begin to
discover how economic life may be governed by political
decisions. Economic life is concerned with using material
objects for human welfare. Political life can and does involve
decisions and actions which determine how
material products are used for human consumption. Barth's
doctrine of
creation describes some of God's decisions and actions with
respect to
using the material world to enhance human existence. It also
includes
elements of how human beings use and should use the created
world. His
doctrine of creation has its basis in his exegesis of the two
creation
accounts of Genesis and is found in III:1 of the Church
Dogmatics. Barth
exegetes the first creation account under the title "Creation as
the External Basis of the Covenant," while the second account is
exegeted under the
title "The Covenant as the internal Basis of Creation." As
these titles
suggest, his exegesis of the two Genesis accounts establishes a
relation
between creation and covenant. In the fourth chapter we shall
show that
political life is an aspect of the covenant, so that everything
we learn
here about the relations between the covenant and the economic
aspects of
creation will apply to the relations between political realm and
economic
life with certain restrictions which will be indicated in
their place.
Therefore, in this chapter, we shall investigate Barth's
doctrine of creation, and begin to lay the the foundations for
understanding how economic
and political life are related.
Creation and Covenant
We shall follow Barth's exegesis of the two creation
accounts.
Before we plunge into the details of his exegesis, we need to
be able to
see the picture as a whole. We can gain a glimpse of the whole
by describing how Barth relates creation and covenant, as this
relationship guides
the whole of his exegesis. Our ultimate goal is to know how the
political
order is responsible for economic life. Barth's exegesis does
not lead us
at once to that goal, and therefore our discussion of how
covenant and
economic life are related will have to go beyond Barth in a
number of
places. We can do this from a Barthian perspective if we are
aware of
Barth's exegetical presuppositions, so that our extension of
Barth will
remain true to his original intent. Therefore, prior to our
following
Barth's exegesis, we need to do two things. First, in the
context of
Barth's doctrine of creation, we need to outline the major ways
in which
creation is related to covenant. Our discussion of the
relation between
creation and covenant will have its basis in the results of the
previous
chapter. Secondly, we need to determine Barth's exegetical
presuppositions. We can do both of these at the same time, as
Barth's exegetical
presuppositions flow naturally out of his understanding of the
relationship
between covenant and creation. Then, with our basic map of the
territory
in mind, and armed with a knowledge of how to proceed
exegetically, we will
then advance with Barth into his exegesis of the two creation
accounts.
How does Barth distinguish between covenant and creation?
The origin
of the distinction lies within the Triune life. We will
focus on two
aspects of the inner triune life which result in creation and
covenant,
their distinctiveness, and their relatedness. Within himself God
eternally
begets the Son in the togetherness of mutual love which is the
Holy Spirit,
(1.2) and (1.3). The phrase "eternally begets" means at least
two things.
First, it means that God creates, and this is expressed in the
idea that
the Son is begotten of the Father. The inner triune reality
of God's
begetting the Son is the basis for God's work outside himself,
his act of
creating the universe. Barth expresses it as follows:
As the Father, God procreates Himself from all eternity in
His Son, and
with his Son He is also from eternity the origin of Himself
in the Holy
Spirit; and as the Creator He posits the reality of all
things that are
distinct from Himself. The two things are not identical.
Neither the
Son nor the Holy Spirit is the world; each is God as the
Father himself
is God. But between the two, i.e., between the
relationship in God
himself and God's relationship to the world, there is an
obvious proportion. In view of this it is meaningful and
right to designate God
the Father in particular (per appropriationem) as
Creator and God the
Creator in particular (per appropriationem) as the
Father.(1)
By virtue of the fact that God in himself creates, the
world exists.
Secondly, God loves. In himself, from all eternity, the Father
loves the
Son, and, outside himself, he loves those he has created.
God first
creates, and then he continues to relate to those he has
created, and they
are called to respond to him and to enter into personal
fellowship with him
and one another. We may initially understand the covenant to
be acts of
encounter or fellowship with God and among peoples. When Barth
exegetes
the Genesis accounts, he does so from the point of view that
covenant is
the internal basis of creation. As we follow his exegesis we
will note
that covenant entails mutual speaking and listening among peoples
and with
God; it involves acts of blessing and assistance, protection,
and concern,
and it includes hostile acts of encounter among peoples such as
the Exodus,
the Conquest, and the Exile. Since the covenant exists as
events of
encounter, it of necessity takes a social form. Covenant is
a social
history, and it has its basis in God who is social and
historical in
himself, (1.7) and (1.8) As God is in himself, so he is in
his actions,
and he wishes to enter into an ongoing history of fellowship
with his
creatures and he does so.
In other words, as God in Himself is neither deaf nor dumb
but speaks
and hears His Word from all eternity, so outside His
eternity He does
not wish to be without hearing or echo, that is, without
the ears and
voices of the creature. The eternal fellowship between
Father and Son,
or between God and His Word, thus finds a correspondence in
the very
different but not dissimilar fellowship between God and His
creature.(2)
Creation refers to the existence of an object, covenant refers
to God's
communicating with the created object, and the difference
between the two
lies in the difference between bringing something into existence
and then
relating meaningfully to it. In Barth's words, "We have to
make a self-evident restriction. Creation itself is not the
covenant. The existence
and being of the one loved are not identical with the fact
that it is
loved."(3)
Economic Life Defined
In light of this rudimentary distinction between creation
and covenant we want tentatively to define economics, and then
make an important
distinction with respect to economic matters which will not only
guide our
study, but will be of decisive significance for determining
the major
results of this dissertation. The value of the definition and
the distinction will lie in their being able to illumine the
relevance of Barth for
relating political and economic life. Let us now anticipate
subsequent
results and describe economic life as the cluster of activities
devoted to
the creating, sustaining, or renewing of human bodily existence.
In light
of this broad definition, God's creation of the material world is
an economic act in that one of God's aims in creation is to
create and sustain
bodily life. In the next chapter we will note that Barth speaks
of God's
maintaining the bodily existence of Jesus from all eternity, or
that God
raised Jesus physically from the dead. We will understand these
events as
economic acts in the most general sense. In a more
restricted sense,
pertaining to human economic activities, economic life is the
cluster of
activities in which the products of nature are used to sustain
and enhance
humanity's bodily existence. Economic life pertains to using
nature's
resources to provide food, clothing, and shelter. In light
of Barth's
distinction between creation and covenant, economic activity
can then be
divided into two related aspects. One aspect of economic
activity is
directly concerned with the relationship to nature and to the
products of
nature that have economic use. This aspect deals with all the
relationships between persons and things as found in the
economic process. It
involves such matters as growing food, mining, construction and
production,
transportation and distribution of products among peoples, and
their use
and consumption. We shall call this aspect the technical aspect
of economic life. The technical aspect of economic life is in
more or less in
constant flux. Its essence is the human relation to the objects
of nature
as used economically, and this changes as the objects change,
the relation
to them changes, or differing peoples assume new relations to
the given
objects. The relations may change as new products are
discovered, new
lands or mines opened up, new resources exploited; or the old
products and
resources may be used in a more technically advanced manner; or
differing
peoples may change their relationship to the available economic
objects, as
when various nations or classes conquer the lands or productive
systems of
others. The technical aspect of economic life is important,
in that it
describes phenomenologically the fact that the earth yields its
produce and
by many and varied human relations to these products they find
their way
into human use and consumption. The importance of the technical
aspect, of
course, and its hope, is that this process will so occur that
all people
will be able to sustain and nourish their bodily existence.
There is another aspect of economic life. In the process
of using
nature and its products, human beings encounter one another
socially and
historically. They cooperate among themselves in economic
endeavors, they
struggle to achieve economic supremacy through political means,
or they may
choose so to order themselves as to compete economically with a
minimum of
competition or warfare. In any case, these social/historical
encounters
affect the economic system, including the technical aspect of
economic
life. Our fundamental question is whether and how the social
order of the
state should involve itself in altering the technical aspect of
economic
life, particularly as it relates to altering the economic
system so that
certain sectors have greater access to economic power and
benefits. In
this respect, a society could address itself to such questions
as who will
own the land or the means of production, how these assets are
to be utilized, and who will receive their benefits. We
shall call this second
aspect the covenant or political aspect of economic life.
Or, if our
emphasis is on political life, we will call it the economic
aspect of
political life. The first aspect pertains to creation and the
relation to
the natural world, the second to covenant and historical and
social relationships among peoples. In the Genesis accounts,
God and humanity's
relationship to nature occupies center stage. If the Genesis
accounts had
no interest beyond that of the human relationship to nature, if
they were
concerned only with creation and not covenant, then we could
not address
the second aspect of economic life. From our previous chapter
we noted
that Barth appropriates creation under the doctrine of God the
Father. One
aspect of God the Father is His hiddenness, (1.2), with the
result that
creation alone gives no knowledge of God's person, or how he
has called
people to relate personally to one another in the covenant aspect
of their
economic life. Creation does, however, provide human beings
with the
knowledge they need to develop the technical side of economic
life, but it
gives no insight into the covenant.(4) The creation accounts
are, however,
as exegeted by Barth, concerned with covenant, they establish a
relationship between covenant and creation. Covenant is the
internal basis of
creation which in turn is the external basis of covenant. Read
from this
perspective, the creation accounts establish three sets of
relationships:
one between nature on the one hand and God and his creatures on
the other
as given in creation, one between creation and covenant, and
relations
among persons in the covenant. Putting these relationships
together, we
will be able to see how God and humanity's relationship to
nature is
related to their relationships among themselves. In other
words, we will
be discovering how people are called to relate to nature as an
aspect of
their covenant relations with one another. The technical aspect
of economic life is one way in which human beings relate to
nature. Barth understands political life, and this will
include the political aspect of economic life, as an aspect of
covenant relationships. Therefore, seeing how
God and people relate to nature as an aspect of their personal
relations
with one another will show us how the technical and political
aspects of
economic life are related, or how economic activity is related to
political
activity. As we explicate these relations we shall verify our
thesis that
economic life has its basis in social history.
Creation and Covenant--Two Images
We have, in a rudimentary fashion, distinguished between
covenant and
creation. The distinction lies in there being a difference in
the existence of an object and the fact that the object is
loved. We now want to
refine our understanding of covenant and creation, and we may
begin by
describing how creation and covenant, though distinct, are
positively
related to each other.
In the previous chapter we described creation and
reconciliation as
among the three primary acts of God united in the one history
of God's
election in Jesus Christ. We noted that Barth appropriates the
one universal history of election into three distinct and
related histories--creation, reconciliation, and redemption,
corresponding to Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, (1.5). These three histories are related and their
relations
depend upon the inner triune relations of the three persons.
When Barth
speaks of covenant, he means the history of acts of fellowship
which has
its fulfillment in reconciliation. The history of the
covenant has its
basis in Jesus Christ the reconciler. Therefore, covenant and
creation are
related since reconciliation and covenant are related, and their
relations
originate in the inner-triune life. "The decisive anchorage of
the recognition that creation and covenant belong to each other
is the recognition
that God the Creator is the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit."(5) In
relating and distinguishing between creation and covenant,
Barth employs
two principle images. First, creation and covenant are related
spatially
as two concentric circles with Jesus Christ at the center.
The inner
circle is covenant, the outer is creation. This is the image
that is in
Barth's mind when he describes the covenant as the internal
basis of the
creation while creation is the external basis of the covenant.
In terms of
time, this implies that the time of the covenant culminating in
the time of
Jesus Christ is the basis of creation time, although creation
time occurs
first temporally. The first image follows from God's begetting
the Son and
only the Son, so that all his acts including creation have their
ontic and
noetic basis in the Son, (1.2). The second image is linear.
The history
of creation is the initial history which sets the stage for a
subsequent
history--the history of the covenant. These two histories,
thought distinct, are in an indissoluble connection. Together
they form the first two
acts in the history of election which ends in the third act of
the final
eschatological age. The linear image follows from the fact that
all God's
actions are historical and that the Son comes from the Father,
(1.2) and
(1.7). We will now expand upon these two images, beginning with
the image
of the two concentric circles.
The First Image
Creation, as the outer of the two concentric circles, is
what Barth
calls "the external basis of covenant." In what sense is it an
external
basis? Creation is a basis in the sense that it provides the
"ground and
sphere and object and instrument" of covenant.(6) Creation
provides the
necessities of bodily existence, and makes available the
external time and
place in which the fellowship of the covenant can occur.
Fellowship with
God, and among peoples, does not take place in some timeless
realm, nor
apart from bodily needs, but only within time and upon earth.
Furthermore,
creation is a sovereign act of God. It cannot be abrogated and
rejected.
No mode of God occurs alone, all modes must be understood and
occur only in
relation to the other modes, (1.6). Therefore, the fellowship
that occurs
in covenant as appropriated to the Son can occur only in
conjunction with
creation appropriated to the mode of God the Father. The
fellowship of
social life occurs only by supplying the physical and temporal
necessities
of life. Therefore creation is indispensable to covenant,
and to the
social and political life that belongs to covenant. In this
sense creation
is the basis, the external basis of covenant.(7) From this we
may conclude
that the technical aspect of economic life is an indispensable
prerequisite
for human existence.
Although creation is the external basis of the covenant,
it does not
have priority over the covenant. The covenant has priority,
it is the
inner circle which supports the existence of the outer
circle. This
follows from the fact that the Father begets only the Son
within the triune
life, and ad extra God's first act is the establishment
of the history of
Jesus Christ as the basis of all other histories, (1.7). Jesus
Christ is
the fulfilled covenant, and therefore the covenant is the
basis of
creation.(8) When Barth places Christ and the covenant in the
inner circle
with respect to creation, he is saying something about the
priority of
personal fellowship over the relationship to nature. We shall
show that
economic relationship to nature is directed toward, and
initiated, maintained, and transformed, by the social historical
life of the covenant. We
can express the priority of the covenant in another way--the
purpose of the
relationship to nature is to serve social relationships, and
social relations initiate, maintain, and transform both the
relations to nature as
well as social relations themselves. Or, since the technical
aspect of
economic life involves relationships with nature and its
products, we may
say, that the technical aspect of economic life is to serve
personal relations, and the political aspect of economic life
is the process of determining how these personal relations can
be best served by initiating,
maintaining, and transforming both technical and political
economic activities. These conclusions have their origin in the
fact that God's economic
activities, or the technical economic activity of meeting
human bodily
needs through the creation of the world, is ontologically
dependent upon
covenant. Therefore, at least as far as God is concerned, all
economic
activities are an aspect of his personal relations. God makes
no "purely
economic" decisions, "purely economic" meaning economic
activities without
any personal or political aspect. This follows from the fact
that God
begets only the Son, so that God's economic acts appropriated to
the Father
have their basis in the Father/Son covenant relationship. From
this our
thesis will follow, that economic life has its basis in
covenant, where
covenant is a social history.
The ontological priority of covenant can also be expressed
in terms of
time. According to Barth, creation time has its basis in the
lifetime of
Jesus Christ. We have already noted that the history of Jesus
Christ is
the ontological basis of all other histories. In the context of
creation,
Barth expresses the matter as follows:
In this case, too, the first and genuine time which is the
prototype of
time is not the time of creation but that of reconciliation
for which
the world and man were created in the will and by the
operation of God.
Real time, in this case, is primarily the life-time of Jesus
Christ, .
. . It was in correspondence with this real time, and as the
necessary
and adequate form of this event, that time was originally
created--in
and with creation and at the same time also as the form of
the history
of creation itself. We say originally because it was the
beginning of
all time. But it was created as a reflection and
counterpart when we
consider it in relation to its material origin and ground.(9)
When Barth says that the time of creation is a "reflection and
counterpart"
of the original time of Jesus Christ, he does not mean that
creation
history is the mere repetition of Jesus' history, or that what
we know in
creation can perhaps be discerned in the covenant of Jesus
Christ alone.
Both creation history and the time of Jesus Christ are distinct
histories;
neither one is a mere reflection of the other. They derive from
the dis-
tinctions within the triune life. They are not, however,
totally independent. Each one is necessary for understanding the
other, and both mutually
illumine each other. This follows from the fact that each
mode must be
known in and with the others, (1.6). There is, however, a
priority. Covenant is prior. With respect to economic life,
the history of Jesus Christ
emphasizes the covenant aspect of economic affairs, while
creation emphasizes the technical aspect. Even in our
investigation of creation, however, the fact that the history
of Jesus Christ is its basis will imply
that we can discern elements of the covenant aspect of economic
life in
God's creative activity. In the following chapter we shall
continue our
investigation of the economic aspects of covenant as they are
fulfilled in
Jesus Christ. At that time we shall complete our
understanding of the
covenant aspects of economic life. The relatedness of creation
and covenant implies that the results we obtain here can and
must be integrated
with the results we obtain in the following chapter. In this
way we may
arrive at a comprehensive understanding of God's economic work in
his major
creative acts.
The Second Image
Although covenant is the ontological basis of creation,
the history
of creation precedes the history of the covenant. Within the
Church Dogmatics the priority of covenant is seen in that
Barth places election before
creation, (1.5). Nevertheless, the fact that the Son comes
from the
Father, and the Father is pure origin, leads to covenant's
occurring temporally after creation. When Barth speaks of
covenant, he does not mean
events of fellowship or communication in general, but first and
foremost,
the covenant is the specific covenant history narrated in
Scripture. The
covenant begins where creation ends. Its initial event is the
fall, followed by events such as the call of Abraham, the
Exodus, the Exile, and the
prophetic movement. These Old Testament events of God's
dealings with
Israel culminate in the New Testament witness to the history
of Jesus
Christ, and this covenant history is the basis for God's work
in present
history as well as the final eschatological age. This entire
history is
constituted by special events in which God personally addresses
and relates
to his creatures. This series of events, seen as a history,
follows upon
and is indissolubly linked to the history of creation. In
Barth's view,
the biblical narrative itself forces us to interpret creation in
connection
with the history of the covenant. The biblical narrative links
creation,
Gen. 1 and 2, to the covenant history which begins in Gen.
3.(10) The
continuity is made possible by the fact that both creation and
covenant are
histories, a series of acts of God, the first, creation, leading
up to the
second, covenant. The image here is linear, creation is the
initial history that leads to covenant, and both histories are
indissolubly connected.
But as God's first work, again according to the witness of
Scripture
and the confession, creation stands in a series, in an
indissolubly
real connexion, with God's further works. And these works,
excluding
for the moment the work of redemption and consummation,
have in view
the institution, preservation, and execution of the
covenant of
grace.(11)
Creation history and the history of the covenant belong
together for
another reason as well. Both times are times of grace apart
from sin. No
sin is envisioned in creation. It is a time of God's mercy.
Both creation
and covenant time are directly created by God, and can be
contrasted with
lost and human time in that the latter is time used in defiance
of God's
purposes. It is this time, the time of human sin, that is
countered and
redeemed by Jesus Christ. Though both creation and covenant
time are
identical as free from sin, they differ in certain respects.
First, creation times does not encounter chaos, sin, and
death. Chaos hangs over
creation as a threat, but that threat does not become actual
within creation itself. Sin occurs in the context of covenant;
it is a violation of
the covenant, and not a transgression of a law of nature.
Secondly, the
time of the covenant encounters opposition and overcomes it.
Supremely the
time of Jesus Christ is unfallen time, the time of
reconciliation. Therefore, since both times are God's direct
creation and free from sin, Barth
will say that the true continuation of the days of creation is
the lifetime
of Jesus Christ.
The real time which we are priviledged to have in and with
Jesus Christ
is God's time of grace--the time of the old and new covenants
. . . And
this time is the true counterpart of the time of creation.
This time--
and the same cannot be said of "our" lost time--is the true
continuation and sequel of the days, the week, in which God in
his goodness
created all things and finally man.(12)
Since both creation and covenant time are brought together as
God's one
time for his creatures, the results pertinent to economic life
that we
obtain from both these histories must be brought together as
well.
Creation as Saga
Throughout our discussion we have spoken of creation as a
history.
We must specify more concretely what Barth means by this. That
creation is
historical follows from the fact that the triune God is
historical in
himself, and that creation has its basis in the history of Jesus
Christ.(13)
By "historical," Barth means that creation is a series of
events brought
into existence by God's acts. The Word of God brought creation
into existence in six days. Each new word creates new
realities, and although these
realities are integrated with previously created realities,
they do not
emerge from them by natural processes, but are utterly new in
the sense
that they have no causal antecedents except for the prior Word
of God.
Barth adopts the word "saga" to describe the historical
character of the
Genesis accounts.(14) He uses this term in contrast to two
other words,
"history" in the historicist sense, and myth. In contrast to
"history" in
the usual sense, the Genesis sagas cannot be ordered into a
coherent scheme
of immanent historical causality, nor were they humanly
observable. They
deal with events and occurrences, and in that sense have an
historical
character. But these events, the events of the days of
creation, for
example, are non-historical in the sense that each occurs by
God's free
creative act, and results in the formation of realities that
were not
immanent within prior created realities. That is, the events
of creation
lack historical antecedents, they come from nothing except for
the creative
Word of God. This is an affirmation of creation ex
nihilo.(15) In this
sense they are non-historical; they are not historisch.
As such, the
events of creation have an intermediary quality, they are
historical as
occurrence, and non-historical as newly formed events. They
share this
intermediary quality with the events of the covenant which also
exist as
occurrences, but only as given in God's act.
If the history of the covenant of grace with its miracles,
and especially its great central miracle, is not only
undoubtedly historical
but also (to the extent to which it is itself a
continuation of the
history of creation) highly "non-historical," we can only
say of the
history of creation in itself and as such that it is by
nature wholly
"non-historical," and that the biblical accounts of it are
also by
nature wholly "non-historical" and can only be read and
understood as
such.(16)
On the other hand, Barth distinguishes creation history from
myth. Myth,
and here we may recall our earlier discussion, deals with
general principles and timeless truths. Myths are a poetic
version of existence. The
point of myth is to look beyond its narration to its underlying
timeless
reality. God and his activity are unessential to myth, in that
the mythic
gods are representations of cosmic powers and processes. Barth
observes,
for example, that mythic versions of creation portray reality
as being
created from the bodies of the gods. By contrast, the triune
God creates
ex nihilo through his Word.(17) As described in the
creation saga, his work
is the work of the triune God, who is utterly distinct from his
creation,
hidden beyond it, yet Lord of its existence and able to create
it and then
continue to act within it in a triune fashion. As the
creation of the
triune God, creation already prefigures the covenant which
follows from it,
in that neither creation nor covenant deals with timeless
principles, but
with the encounter of the triune God with his creatures, the
event of the
Word of address and the miracle of the resurrection of the dead.
We may
now advance by presenting three of Barth's exegetical
presuppositions which
guide his exegesis of the creation accounts.
First Exegetical Presupposition
First, Barth interprets the creation sagas
Christologically.(18) This
exegetical presupposition follows from the fact that the Father
begets only
the Son, and that creation was made through him, (1.2).
Christ's history
is the ontological basis of the creation sagas. Apart from a
Christological exegesis, however, the creation sagas are silent
with respect to the
nature of God. But, when exegeted Christologi cally, they
reveal the nature
of God the Creator. This presup position forms the backbone
of Barth's
exegesis of the creation accounts. He begins his volume on
creation with
the statement that "the insight that man owes his existence
and form,
together with all the reality distinct from God, to God's
creation, is
achieved only in the reception and answer of the divine
self-witness, that
is, only in faith in Jesus Christ, . . ."(19) In exegeting
Genesis from a
Christological perspective, Barth rejects two alternate
possibilities.(20)
First, the interest of the stories is not general truths,
whether metaphysical or scientific; and secondly, the creation
sagas cannot be severed
from the history of the covenant, but must be interpreted from
its perspective. The creation sagas speak of creation in
general, the formation of
the external world, its light, firmament, land and seas,
vegetation and
animal life. But that is not their primary interest. Their
primary concern is the specific, the particular, the particular
events of the covenant, and from that perspective, the
significance of the external world is
perceived. For example, the separation of the waters on day
three (Gen. 1:
9), or the fact that God placed Adam in Eden (Gen. 2:15), refer
first and
foremost to Israel's entrance into the land, and then from that
particular
point of reference, to the general existence of land and its
usage. In
other words, with respect to economic life, creation is not
primarily
concerned with land or its usage in general, but how land is
utilized by a
specific people (Israel), and from the point of view of specific
historical
events, the entrance into the land, its defense, and its loss
in exile.
The specific historical events that occur in the context of
covenant make
it possible to see how the economic relationship to nature, the
production
of food, clothing, and shelter, function in specific covenant
relations
between peoples and God. The liberation from Egypt, the
conquest of
Canaan, and the loss of the land due to the broken covenant,
are all
covenant events which occur between peoples and God, and each
of these
events involves a relation to specific lands such as Egypt and
Canaan. It
is from this specific point of view, the perspective of the
covenant, that
creation in general is to be interpreted. Creation can and must
be interpreted in this fashion since covenant is its basis,
center, and goal. In
speaking of creation and covenant as God's first two works, Barth
will say:
"As God's first work, it is in the nature of a pattern or
veil of the
second, and therefore in outline already the form of the
second."(21) Or
again, the "whole bible speaks figuratively and prophetically
of Him, of
Jesus Christ, when it speaks of creation, the Creator, and the
creature.
If, therefore, we are to understand and estimate what it says
about creation, we must first see that--like everything else it
says--this refers and
testifies first and last to Him."(22) Therefore, our first and
most fundamental exegetical presupposition will be that we
will interpret the two
creation sagas Christologically, in light of the history of the
covenant as
culminating in Jesus Christ.
Second Exegetical Presupposition
Our second exegetical principle follows at once from the
first. In
Jesus Christ God is revealed as pure mercy and grace. As the
Father of
Jesus Christ God is the Creator, and his creation is pure
benefit and
mercy.(23) Apart from Jesus Christ and creation's connection
with covenant,
creation cannot be seen as the work of a just and merciful God.
It is not self-evident that the reality which surrounds man,
even his
existence, is a reflection of the benevolence of the One
to whom it
owes its reality. In and for itself it is certainty not
this. Menacing evil, or a polluted source of no less evil than
good or menace than
promise, might equally well underlie it as the
benevolence of the
Creator.(24)
But the God who creates always acts as the Father of Jesus
Christ, so that
his work as Creator is an aspect of the love that was revealed
in Jesus
Christ. In Jesus Christ God's acts are pure mercy and grace.
Therefore
God's acts in creation are an expression of his grace, his love
of humanity. "Creation is understood and apprehended as grace
in faith in Jesus
Christ. That is why this faith is life in trust and
confidence in the
Creator, in unchangeable and never failing hope in His
benevolence."(25) We
will read the creation stories from the perspective that nothing
in creation as created by God inevitably entails human misery.
As created by God,
creation is pure benefit, and therefore the origin of economic
suffering
cannot be found in a general cosmic order.(26) We cannot,
for example,
accept Malthus, or Marx's belief in the ascending
exploitation of the
masses as the precondition of an utopian age, or certain
features of current economic thought which holds that
economic contractions and their
resultant suffering are necessary and salutary for a nation's
economic
vigor. The economic misery of the contemporary world does not
lie in God,
nor the world he has made. We shall show that economic
suffering is a
consequence of sin. Sin, from Barth's perspective, is not the
transgression of a law of nature, but a violation of the
covenant, and Barth deals
with sin in the context of covenant rather than creation.(27)
Through our
study of Barth's exegesis of the creation sagas we will be able
to show
that economic misery is a consequence of breaking covenant, but
we will not
be able to delineate the character of economic sin until we
speak of the
fulfilled covenant in the following chapter.
Third Exegetical Presupposition
We will, following Barth, interpret the creation sagas
eschatologically. Since all God's works involve each mode, and
since the Spirit is
the giver of life, the Spirit is active and present in
creation.(28) It is
God the Holy Spirit that comes forth from God, who in
himself is the
communion and love between the Father and the Son, and
therefore, outside
God, the agent through which the creation and the creature is
maintained in
relation and communion with God. Creation has its ontological
and noetic
basis in Christ, and it has its separate from yet related to
existence with
God because of Spirit. The work of the Spirit in creation will
find its
complete realization in the eschatological age. At that time
the threat
and chaos that hangs over the original creation, a threat
which became
actual in the subsequent history of sin, will be completely
abolished, and
God's good creation will be restored in a new heaven and earth.
That is,
the creation sagas, when interpreted in terms of Word and
Spirit, contain
within them the promise that the economic deprivation of the
present age
will be abolished in the age to come.
In conclusion, our aim in this chapter is to follow
Barth's exegesis
of the two creation accounts. We will discover how God and
humanity in
Jesus Christ make economic use of nature in the context of
their social
historical relationships. We will interpret the Genesis stories
in terms
of Word and Spirit, and this will imply that creation is pure
benefit.
Epistemology, Creation, and Covenant
We may take advantage of our present context to comment on
a matter
that will be relevant to our work in the final chapter. Our
objective in
that chapter we will be to integrate our Barthian results with an
empirical
socioeconomic analysis of one aspect of economic life. At
that time we
will be coordinating two forms of knowledge, the knowledge of
revelation as
given in the covenant, and empirical knowledge as gained through
a socioeconomic analysis. How are these two forms of
knowledge related? Since
Barth rejects natural theology, the knowledge of the world
gained through
observation and reflection cannot overlap with theological
knowledge as
revealed in the covenant. Empirical knowledge belongs by
appropriation to
creation as corresponding to God's remoteness; the knowledge of
revelation
belongs to the covenant as fulfilled in the Son. These two
forms of
knowledge are distinct since Father and Son are distinct within
the triune
life. They are also related since covenant and creation are
related, and
their relation reflects the image of two concentric circles.
The clearest
expression of this relation is found in The Church
Dogmatics, Volume Four,
Part Three, in the section entitled "The Light of Life."(29) In
this section
Barth discusses empirical knowledge or common sense, as the
human capacity
to know and observe the world.(30) This general human knowledge
includes the
exact sciences,(31) and will of course include the information
given through
an empirical socioeconomic analysis. Barth calls this
knowledge the
"lights of creation." This knowledge is necessary, it enables
human beings
to order and shape the world, and to exercise freedom and
responsibility
within the created order.(32) But the lights of creation are not
the Word of
God, they say nothing of God and his covenant. Nevertheless,
just as
creation serves the covenant as its external stage, the lights
of creation
serve the Word of God.(33) In the event of revelation the Word
integrates
and orients the lights of creation to the one Light which is
Jesus Christ
the Light of Life.
The positive thing which takes place in the confrontation of
the little
lights of creation with the great light of its Creator is
that they are
not passed over or ignored, let alone destroyed or
extinguished, but
integrated in the great light. They are not incapable of
this integration. How could they be? They were created by him
and certainly not
created accidently or without purpose.(34)
The image that Barth employs at this point is that the Word as
the center
gathers and integrates the other words which exist on the
periphery. Furthermore, the Word of grace makes this human
knowledge itself binding as a
part of the Word itself. In other words, the words that
exist on the
periphery become elements in the Word as they are incorporated
into the
Word of grace with the consequence that the results of
observation become
part of God's Word as spoken in a specific moment.(35) This
follows from the
fact that no mode of God occurs without the others (1.6), and
therefore the
Word of grace corresponding to the Son does not occur without the
knowledge
of creation corresponding to the Father. The fact that God
does not pass
over or avoid these words, let alone destroy or extinguish them,
means that
his creatures are commanded to do likewise with the result that
Christian
preaching and theological exposition can and must make use of
empirical
observation and reflection and integrate this knowledge into its
theological context.(36) We shall do this in the final chapter.
We may now turn to
the first account.
The First Account
Introduction
Our purpose in this section is to follow Barth's
exegesis of the
first creation account, Gen. 1:1-2:4a. In comparison to
the second
account, which emphasizes that covenant is the internal basis of
creation,
the first account places greater emphasis on the architectural
structure of
creation as an external framework in which the history of the
covenant may
occur, and only hints at the covenant history toward the
end of the
account. The first account proceeds by a series of words
spoken by God.
By virtue of these words God successively builds the creation,
act upon
act, word by word, until, at the end of six days, the whole is
completed.
The final and seventh day is the culmination of the preceding
six days of
labor. During those six days God provided the setting for what
occurs on
the seventh day. On the seventh day God and his people rest and
fellowship
together, so that covenant is the aim and purpose of the
work of the
preceding six days. Barth describes the first account as
follows:
It describes creation as it were externally as the work of
powerful but
thoroughly planned and thought-out and perfectly supervised
preparation, comparable to the building of a temple, the
arrangement and
construction of which is determined both in detail and as a
whole by
the liturgy which it is to serve. But the beginning of the
peculiar
occurrence to which creation points is touched upon only
towards the
end, and therefore on the fringes of the account; but with
sufficient
reticence not to allow us to forget that creation is one
thing and its
continuation in the history of the covenant of grace
is quite
another.(37)
We must now consider the words by which God built up creation,
especially
focusing upon the economic aspects. The most salient, initial
observation
must be to note the significance of labor. God labored for the
sake of his
creatures (Gen. 2:2), who rested with him on the seventh day.
Our Scriptural quotations will be taken from the Revised
Standard Version of the
Bible.
The First Words
The account begins with the words: "In the beginning God
created the
heavens and the earth." This, in Barth's view, is an
introductory statement referring to what follows, and not a
statement saying that creation
has now taken place. Creation occurs only by virtue of the
succeeding
commands, the labor of the six days, which builds creation
step by step.
Creation actually begins with the statement in verse three where
God says
"Let there be light." Since verse one is a preamble,
referring to the
creative activity that begins only with verse three, it does not
mean that
the waste and void of verse two, or the darkness that existed
upon the face
of the deep, were created by God. Darkness and chaos are not
created by
God. God creates only the good; his creation is pure
benefit. It is
precisely chaos, a wasted and empty world, that God does not
create. The
waste and void refer to the fact that in deciding to create God,
rejected a
multitude of possibilities. These rejected possibilities are the
waste and
void of verse two which hang like a shadow over the world that
God will
create beginning in verse three.(38) These rejected
possibilities are not,
however, chaos in general, or simply our view of a world gone
amuck. Only
in Jesus Christ will we be able to see the nature of these
rejected possibilities. When Barth insists that the waste and
void of verse two are
possibilities rejected by God, he is claiming that chaos,
including economic misery and suffering, are not willed by God,
but that God did and does
reject economic misery. God rejected it in the first
creation, and by
virtue of his work in Jesus Christ, he rejects it today.
Therefore Barth
will say, "Gen. 1:2 speaks of the 'old things' which according
to 2 Cor.
5:17 have radically passed away in the death and resurrection
of Jesus
Christ. It tells us that even from the standpoint of the first
creation,
let alone the new, chaos is really 'old things,' the past and
superseded
essence of this world."(39)
The First Day
We now come to the first act by which God creates the
world. In
verses three through five a number of things happen. First God
says "Let
there be light," there was light, God sees that the light is
good, he
divides it from the darkness, he calls the light Day and the
darkness
Night, and the evening and morning were the first day. We may
begin with
the fact that creation begins by God uttering his Word.
Creation begins on the first day by God uttering the words,
"Let there
by light." The phrase "And God said" begins each of the six days
of God's
creation (vv. 3, 6, 9, 14, 24) and is a striking feature of
the creation
narrative. Creation comes into existence by the Word of God.
We have
already explored aspects of God's acting in his Word. In
this context
Barth wants to emphasize that creation is not an emanation from
God, it is
a distinct reality, created by God through his Word and not
constructed
from the being of God. By contrast, mythic versions of
creation, current
at the time of the formation of the Genesis narratives, portray
creation as
deriving from the body of the gods, from their spittal, their
tears, or
even from their clothes.(40) Creation through the Word not
only emphasizes
the distinctiveness of creation from God, but also its existence
as determined by God's Word and his continued Word as he acts
within and upon
creation. None of creation's structures or powers have divine
legitimacy,
they were created distinct from God, and as subject to his rule
they may be
at any moment abolished. The entire old creation, including
the world's
social and economic systems, is subject to the Word of God who
is Jesus
Christ, and in whom the old is passing away and all becoming
new. Therefore, speaking of the Word by which God creates,
Barth comments:
Until the end of all time, when it will again affect all
heaven and
earth, the same Word will declare the old to have passed
and the new
come, and with this declaration it will itself affect the
passing of
the one and the coming of the other. This is the context in
which the
way-yo'mer Elohim of Gen. 1:3f has also to be read
(without detriment
to its obvious and specific meaning) if we are to grasp its
obvious and
specific meaning.(41)
Not only does God form creation by his Word, but by this same
Word he
creates the history of the covenant so that both nature and
social history
belong to the way-yo'mer Elohim spoken in creation.
Both are shaped and
transformed by God's Word. The fact, however, that creation is
shaped by
the history-creating Word, implies that its structures and
powers are
subject to history and that the human relationship to nature,
including the
technical aspects of economic life, is historically shaped and
formed. We
will describe this more concretely in subsequent paragraphs.
Since both
nature and social life are subject to God's Word, economic life
has its
basis in history, in the Word which creates history.
The Significance of Objects and Relations to Them
God's first creative Word was "Let there be light."
Light is the
first material object created by God. We may now ask a
fundamental question, one that brings us at once to one of
the major results of this
chapter. What is the significance or ultimate import of objects
and human
or divine relations to them? Specifically, what is the
significance of
material products and the economic activity of relating to
them? With
respect to the light and the material world as created by
God, Barth
presents three alternatives in order to clarify his position.
Briefly, the
interest of the biblical writers is not science or cosmology.
They are not
primarily interested in how the material objects relate to
one another
(science), nor in how humans exist within the natural order
(cosmology),
although they recognize the importance of both these
relationships. For
example, the Hebrew writers knew very well that light is
associated with
the sun;(42) they were not totally naive scientifically. And
they knew that
other peoples, as explicated in their myths, saw themselves in
a special
relation to the sun, and therefore worshipped the sun. The
primary significance of light for the biblical writers, however,
though obviously significant for science and cosmology, is how
light functions in the covenant as
an aid or witness of the personal relationships between God and
people and
among peoples. Therefore, the creation of light is put before
the creation
of the sun, which is not only an offense to science, but was
in obvious
contrast to the surrounding mythic versions of reality. Barth
asks why the
biblical writers adopted this order.
Why did Israel alone obviously do this? It is quite
explicable if we
note that the view and concept of light is intensively
distinguished in
this case by the fact that it is a sign and witness of
the divine
revelation, the first and most original correspondence to
the divine
Word. That which stands in primary and fundamental
relation to the
Word of God because it was not only created by it but
because it was
also created at once for its service, to be its sign and
witness,
cannot be dependent on the existence of sun, moon, and
stars; it must
precede their creation.(43)
In making this claim, Barth exegetes a number of biblical passage
on light,
showing that light is primarily seen in its function of
revelation, not
only revealing God, but revealing people to one another. Only in
the light
can people look one another in the eye, so that light is a
created reality
that God uses to make personal communication possible.
Therefore Barth
emphasizes that the Word of God, the Law, Israel, John the
Baptist, the
Gospel, and Jesus himself are called light, for each of them is
a specific
moment of personal disclosure.(44) Barth will say virtually
nothing of how
light is useful for warming the earth, or necessary for the
production of
food, because the primary significance of this particular
created reality
is how it functions and is used in the inter-personal
relationships of the
covenant history. What is established here for light, holds
true for all
of God's created realities. That is, the primary
significance of any
object, and both human and divine relations to that object, is
how the
object or relations to it function in the covenant history.
This follows
from the fact that covenant and creation are related, and
therefore the
objects of creation, and relations to those objects, are
related to the
social relations of the covenant. In turn, covenant and
creation are
related since God eternally begets the Son and only the Son
within the
triune life (1.2). Throughout Barth's exegesis we will
demonstrate that
all objects and relations to them are integrally related to the
personal
relations of the covenant. God creates vegetation on day three,
for example, and a very important meaning of this is that he
wished for people to
have sufficient food. But the having of food is never divorced
from the
fact that it is God who gives the food and that he did so
through the
historical event of the Exodus. The technical economic activity
of gathering food is not only a relationship of human beings to
nature, but it is
also simultaneously and foremost a relationship to a gracious
God who
delivered his people; and further, it is a relationship among
peoples as
Israel fought the Egyptians and Canaanites in their escape from
Egypt and
conquest of Canaan. The light, the food, and other created
objects, provide the external basis by which covenant exists,
and simultaneously they
function within covenant relations as the way God and people
use these
objects as they relate historically to each other. It is from
this perspective, and only from this perspective, that God
calls the light good.
Why is the light good, and why does God not call the darkness
good? and why
will God call the subsequently created realities good (vv. 4,
10, 12, 18,
21, 25, 31.)? It is not because these created objects are
good in themselves. "Nothing outside God Himself, and nothing
that He Himself has
created and created good, has any claim and right in and by
itself to His
good-pleasure and therefore to be called good with genuine
and final
truth."(45) Nor is anything good because human beings have
perceived, or
decided, that something is good apart from God's Word. People,
things, and
their relations, are good only as they exist in relation to God,
good only
as they function according to his good pleasure, and good only
as he uses
them to carry out his covenant purposes in relationship to the
people he
creates. "That it was good when He created it does not mean
the impartation and appropriation of an inherent goodness which
no longer needs the
divine discovery. As its becoming good is a matter of divine
creation, so
its being good is a matter of divine seeing. But this seeing is
grace."(46)
When Barth says that "this seeing is grace," he is referring
to God's
continued active Word which directs and blesses created objects
to his good
purpose. Light is good because God is gracious, he uses
light as he
separates it from darkness and chaos, it functions as an
instrument of his
purpose in warding off the darkness and death which threaten his
creation,
and specifically, he uses it in blessing the creatures he
intends to
create. In other words, the relevance of created objects and
relations to
them, including economic objects and activities is twofold.
First, they
provide an external material basis for covenant life. Secondly,
and this
is our thesis, they function in the social history of the
covenant as an
aspect of the way people relate to one another.
We may note that God created only the light, he did not
create the
darkness. Creating the light was his first act, and the darkness
and chaos
of verse two is, is part, the result of his act in verse three,
the act of
creating light. The account does not say, "And God said, Let
there be
light and dark," but only, "Let there be light." Nor does God
say that
night and light are good, but only that the light is good.(47)
The darkness,
the night, came into "existence" only when it was separated off
from the
light. The light exists; the night "exists" only as the
rejected possibility that occurs from actualizing the positive
possibility of creating
light. Had the aim of the Hebrew writers been to account for
the scientific existence of night, or to give a complete account
of the cosmos, they
would have given the darkness and the night a more positive
significance.
But their governing presupposition was the covenant, and light
functions
within the covenant to enable people to see and hear one
another, and
therefore it enables and witnesses to the fact that God
speaks to his
people and therefore the light is good.
Finally, according to verse four, God "separated the
light from the
darkness." God did not abolish the darkness in its entirety.
It remains
separated away, yet by its continued existence it menances and
threatens
the light's existence. This threat which hangs over creation
has become
actual. Chaos and darkness have invaded the world. In the new
creation,
already inaugurated in Jesus Christ, all darkness will be put
to flight.
According to Rev. 21:2f, 22:5 there will be no night in the
heavenly
Jerusalem, nor will there be any sun or stars.(48) On the final
eschatological day, the evil overcome in Jesus will be visibly
abolished, and there
will be no more threat. All of these concepts light, dark,
day, night,
have their primary meaning in terms of their historical covenant
relevance,
so that the existence of the darkness in the first creation
testifies to
its vulnerability to the destructive force of chaos, not only in
the breaking of the relation between God and humanity, but as we
shall see, for the
rupture of all froms of relationships including economic ones.
We may conclude our treatment of the first day with a
brief comment
on the words "And there was evening and there was morning, one
day." These
words refer to the existence of the day as formed by the Word of
God. The
evening and morning do not refer to the creation of night, but
only day, in
such a way that the evening and morning surround the night.
The evening
refers to the day passed, the morning to the day ahead, and
therewith to
the promise of God that the night will pass and a new day will
dawn. As
created by the Word, day serves the light, and light and day
together serve
God's covenant purposes. God works in the day, and in each of
the six
days, and the meaning of his work is covenant, the Sabbath
rest of the
seventh day. As a result, time is not to be abstractly
considered as
chronology. The significance of any day is how it's time serves
the covenant, and how the work done on that day provides for
the covenant as its
external basis.(49)
We wish to recapitulate briefly at this point as the
foregoing conclusions are very important to us. We have said
that objects and the human or
divine relations to them have a two-fold significance. Objects
and the
relations to them are instrumental in creating the external
basis of life,
and secondly, these objects and how they are used are always in
relation to
the social historical relations of the covenant. From this it
follows that
the technical aspect of economic life, the human relation to
economic
objects, is aways related to the social historical aspect of
economic life
as encounters with God and among peoples. We shall continue to
examine the
relation between economic and social historical life, and to
demonstrate
our thesis that economic life has its basis in social historical
life. The
relationship between these two aspects may be denied. But from
a Barthian
perspective, such a denial would imply that God relates to
nature without
relating to the covenant. In other words, it would imply that
God acts
apart from the Son, and therefore within himself (since
immanent Trinity
reflects the economic Trinity), there would be an aspect or depth
in God in
which he lives or acts apart from the Son. This in turn is
tantamount to
God's not being trinitarian at every depth of himself, which
implies some
form of Arianism, or those heresies that posit an
undifferentiated God in
the depths of God. Barth will not accept this, and we
summarized the
matter in propositions (1.1), (1.2), (1.3), and (1.4).
The Second Day
We now come to the work of the second day. We may be
brief. On this
day God divided the waters above the earth from those below by
the creation
of a firmament. The word "firmament" has connotations of
"something firmly
pounded together" and denotes an earthen yet celestial dam which
prevents
the waters in the upper heavens from engulfing the earth in
watery chaos.(50)
The Genesis saga makes use of the natural science of its day
which held
that there existed a celestial roof of a hard material. Above
this roof
there was thought to be a celestial sea which was prevented from
engulfing
the lower world in watery chaos by the existence of the
heavenly roof or
firmament. Barth does not interpret this in a literal sense.
His exegesis
is a bit inconclusive. Specifically, he views the celestial
waters as a
"'higher power'--in the strictest sense of the term--which
indicates the
metaphysical danger under which human life is lived."(51)
Regardless by what
Barth means by "metaphysical danger," the point here, as made by
Barth, is
that God makes use of this physical firmament to ward off
whatever may
threaten the life of his people. God's use of the firmament is
of a piece
with God's work on all the days of creation. God is creating
physical
objects, and using them to construct a home for humanity. The
aim of his
work, and therefore the aim of work in general, is to
establish a secure
and ordered existence for those who are loved. Work is an
expression of
how one loves. It is a relation to nature and therefore
belongs to the
technical aspect of economic life, and it, at least on God's
part, is a
reflection of his covenant purpose of providing for his
creatures' bodily
needs so that they may exist in fellowship with him. By
means of the
firmament, human beings are given a space in which to live which
is secured
from the watery chaos which hangs over the earth. In the first
creation
the watery chaos is not totally banished, it still exists as
a threat
though held back by God's grace. In the final eschatological
age, the
threatening sea will be transformed into a sea of crystal in a
new heaven
above a new earth (Rev. 4:6, 15:2). It will become firm and
transparent so
that it no longer threaten the lower regions, and therefore, the
firmament
will be rendered superfluous. Heaven will be opened up to
earth, and
humanity will have direct access to God.(52) Just as in the
creation of
light, the firmament is not understood apart from the covenant.
It is an
aspect of God's personal care for his creatures, so that its
being is not
distinct from its function as the mode of God's care.(53)
Finally, we may
note that the second day does not end with the words "And God
saw that it
was good." The work of the second day goes together with God's
work on the
third day. On those two days God wards off the watery chaos in
two acts
and makes a home for human beings. We must now turn to the third
day.
Day Three
We now come closer to the beginnings of economic life, the
creation
of land and the vegetable kingdom. This occurs by virtue of two
utterances
of God, his gathering together of the waters under the heavens
into one
place so that dry land appeared, and then his command that the
earth bring
forth vegetation each according to its kind. God saw that all
of this was
good. These two actions, in contrast to God's actions on the
two previous
days, begin God's acts upon earth and as such approach more
closely the
covenant history which takes place within creation. Furthermore,
by virtue
of God's creating vegetation we have the beginning of economic
life. In
this section we will be able to advance some initial conclusions
as to how
political life is related to economic life.
According to Barth, the purpose of God's actions on the
third day is
"the establishment of a sphere for human life, and especially
the creation
of the vegetable kingdom as the erection of a table in the midst
of this
house which is finally and supremely for man."(54) The image
here is that of
a workman who not only builds a house, but labors to provide
food for the
inhabitants of the house. God's first step in providing food
for his
creatures is to "let the waters under the heavens be gathered
together upon
one place, and let the dry land appear." We must now examine
the significance of these waters that God gathers together, and
thereby discern how
their separation is a factor in the pursuit of economic
activities.
The Gathering of the Waters
The waters of the second and third day, just as the
darkness of day
one, represent the forces of chaos overcome by God in the
process of
creating a good world.(55) The watery forces, according to
Barth's exegesis,
can be understood in several ways. First, there is the natural
wonder on
the part of the Hebrews that the sea was held at bay. With
some exceptions, the Hebrews were not a sea-faring people and
regarded "a sea voyage
(Ps. 107:22f) with desert-wandering, captivity, and sickness as
one of the
forms of extreme human misery; of the misery from which it is
the gracious
and mighty will of God, which we cannot extol too highly, to
redeem us."(56)
The Hebraic horror of the sea was matched by their thankfulness
to God for
protecting the land from the sea, and for preserving them upon
dry land.
The sandy rim of the seashore was seen as a barrier erected by
God, and as
such, another example of his concern for their welfare, a
concern that
evoked their wonder and praise. That nature is so established
that the sea
does not swallow the land, though important, is not the primary
import of
God's gathering together the waters on the third day of
creation. The
primary relevance of this act lies in the fact that God brought
the people
of Israel through the Red Sea at the time of their deliverance
from Egypt,
and he further led them through the waters of Jordan as they
entered the
promised land.
If the processes and relationships of nature are to all
appearance the
primary things considered in this and the other passages,
it must be
added at once that the primary things which they really
have in view
are not the billows of the Mediterranean Sea, not the
frequently mentioned "sand" of the Palestinian shore which
forms its boundary, but
the miraculous passage of Israel through the Red Sea as
depicted in Ex.
14 and frequently extolled in later writings (cf Is. 43:6f.,
Ps. 106:9,
etc), and its repetition at Israel's entrance into the land
promised to
their forefathers.(57)
It was at the Red Sea that God caused the waters "to flow
back and to
swallow up their persecutors," with the result that Israel was
set free to
enter the promised land.(58) The waters of verse nine therefore,
have their
primary significance in terms of history, events in which God
made land
available to people and delivered them from political
oppression. Barth
continues his exegesis by investigating a wide number of biblical
passages
relating to chaotic waters. In essence, they continue the
theme first
enunciated in Israel's escape from political bondage. The watery
chaos of
day three is first and foremost political oppression. These
waters represent foreign invasion and terror, and God's act
of gathering the waters
together represents Israel's deliverance from her enemies. In
the context
of the waters of day three Barth comments,
The Babylonian threat against Jerusalem is the same in
Jer. 6:23:
"Their voice roareth like the sea; and they ride upon
horses, set in
array as men for war against thee, O daughter of Zion." And
the prayer
of Ps. 144:7-8 is in the same terms: "Send thine hand from
above; rid
me, and deliver me out of the great waters, from the hand
of strange
children; whose mouth speaketh vanity and their right hand is
a hand of
falsehood."(59)
From the above it follows that the term "waters" possesses
three inter-related meanings. In a more literal sense it
represents freedom from
watery chaos, the sort of chaos an Israelite envisioned in a
sea voyage.
More specifically, and closer to its primary meaning, the waters
represent
the Red Sea and Jordan, and finally, escape from foreign
domination as
occurred at the Red Sea and Jordan. In all of these meanings the
"waters,"
whether specific bodies of water such as the seas or the Jordan,
or more
figuratively as political oppression, were perceived as having
their deepest significance in the covenant, in the
historical social relations
between God, Israel, and foreign powers. As in the case of
light, so also
water, whether literally or denoting political oppression,
functions within
the context of the covenant understood as God's concern for
his people.
Finally, as in the case of the darkness, Barth notes that the
separated
waters that menace creation will be abolished in the final
eschatological
age. In the new heaven and new earth there will be no sea,
(Rev. 1:9-10),
so that "man will be fully and finally freed from each and every
threat to
his salvation, and God from each and every threat to his
glory."(60) We must
now consider the establishment of the dry land and God's command
that the
earth bring forth vegetation.
The Appearance of the Dry Land
The creation of dry earth, and its bringing forth
vegetation by God's
command, is the positive side of God's work on the third
day.(61) In contrast to the heavens and the sea, the earth is
the special province of the
human race. "It is inhabited by the human race and appointed
for it. It
is the home where he lives and dies. It is the place of his
joy and
sorrow, of his might and impotence, of his sin and worship--but
all this in
the course of the history with a view to which God created
the whole
cosmos, both upper and lower."(62) As the home of humanity,
it is most
importantly the locus of his personal relationships. When Barth
says that
the upper and lower cosmos are created with a particular history
in mind,
he is referring to the history of the covenant. It is upon earth
that this
covenant takes place. Although God's purpose on the third day
is "the
establishment of a sphere for human life, and especially the
creation of
the vegetable kingdom as the erection of a table in the midst
of this
house,"(63) he does not intend to imply that this house and its
table was an
end in itself. The purpose of the house and its food is to
enable the
covenant to take place. The goal of economic existence is
enhanced personal relations among peoples and with God. This
is seen in the teleology
of the first creation saga; the aim of the whole is the Sabbath
rest in
which God and his creatures fellowship together on a day of rest.
Furthermore, economic life makes this personal fellowship
possible. The Sabbath
rest of the seventh day, and the creation of humanity in the
personal
relationship of male and female on the sixth day, depend
crucially upon the
work of the previous days. Therefore, Barth will say that human
beings are
the most necessitous of all creatures in that being created on
the last day
of God's labor, they depend upon all that had gone before.
When man finally appears at the centre of all the older
circle of
creation, and when it is shown in fact that everything must
serve him,
it must not be overlooked that man is thus revealed to be
the most
necessitious of all creatures. Will his sovereignty over
plants and
beasts consist in anything but the fact that he has more to
be grateful
for than these other earthly creatures, not only for his own
existence,
but for that of the whole earthly sphere which is the
indispensable
presupposition of his own?(64)
The result of the foregoing is that creation, including economic
life, is
not only the external basis of covenant, it is the
indispensable basis of
covenant, and covenant is its goal. God provides the external
basis for
human fellowship by cumulatively constructing the world, and
none of the
cumulative acts can be eliminated or bypassed. The events of
day three
pertain to economic existence as a preparation for the
fellowship of day
seven. Therefore, we may conclude that a viable economic
existence is a
necessary, though possibly not sufficient condition, for vital
social and
political relationships. In other words, human beings cannot
enjoy the
blessings of the covenant apart from the grace of God who attends
to bodily
needs. "Thus man lives from the very first by God's grace as he
lives from
this table prepared for him prior to his creation. Every
morsel of which
he partakes is not only a sign of grace but the grace itself
without which
he cannot and would not live."(65) The basis of covenant's
dependence upon
the external creation is the fact that no mode of God exists
apart from the
others (1.6), so that covenant does not exist apart from
creation.
We have already described how the waters separated by
God on the
third day have their primary reference in the history of the
covenant. The
same can be said for the dry land as well. The account has no
philosophical or scientific interest in the origins of the dry
land, but rather, the
account is giving thanks for the vegetation of the promised land
after the
brutal wanderings in the desert.
It must not be forgotten that the green earth as such is to
Old Testament man as much an antithesis of the destroying sea as
of the barren
dessert. The transition from vv. 9-10 to vv. 11-12 is the
passage of a
danger point which is not without an inner relationship to
Israel's
march through the desert. When the dry ground is freed from
the sea,
will it be only dry ground? This would be like a man
escaping from one
terrible monster and falling into the clutches of another.
The desert
is a "terrible land."(66)
In directing our attention to a specific land and to specific
historical
events, the account is not, however, reducing creation to
covenant, but rather, interpreting creation from the point of
view of covenant. In other
words, the whole of creation, all lands and historical moments,
are to be
interpreted from the point of view of a specific land and
specific historical events. That specific history is the
covenant, and its external basis
is the land of Israel. In chapter four we shall show in greater
detail how
God is integrating all times and places into the covenant
history. The
covenant is the ontological basis of all history, and
Palestine is the
territorial basis of other places in that it provides the norm
for how land
functions in and sustains covenant relations. In this way, by
means of the
covenant and its external basis, God acts in all times and
places to bless
people, and his blessing entails the separation of the waters,
and the
provision of dry land and food. Therefore Barth will say:
It is this land which the creation saga has in view when it
speaks of
the dry land separated by God's wisdom and power. And when
it speaks
of the land of the Israelite it speaks precisely of the
whole earth
which as such, by the ministry of Israel and in the
fulfillment of the
promise given to Abraham, is to be revealed in its
totality as the
Lord's possession. Israel will be a blessing (the
blessing) in the
midst of the earth, between Assyria and Egypt (Is. 19:5).(67)
Therefore, in considering any given socioeconomic situation,
the question
may and should arise as to whether the patterns of control and
ownership,
and the distribution of benefits, corresponds to the normative
pattern of
the covenant, and does it lead to the blessing envisioned in the
covenant.
We shall investigate those covenant norms in the following
chapter.
Finally, we may briefly note, that God calls his work on the
third day
good, and that he does so twice, corresponding to his creating
dry land
(vv. 6-8, 9-10), and then vegetation (vv. 11-12.)(68) The
goodness of the
earth and its vegetation does not in the first instance
refer to the
general fact that human beings need land and food for survival,
although
this is certainly true. Its primary reference is to covenant,
to the fact
that God in his mercy led Israel through the wilderness, that he
gave them
the land with its economic bounty, and that they were able to
occupy the
land and hold it against their enemies. The existence of this
land, and
their inhabiting it, are expressions of God's care as
revealed in the
social history of God's relations with his people and among
nations. By
virtue of this land and God's covenant history in this land, the
earth as a
whole is good in that throughout the earth he exercises his will
as given
through the covenant. In that sense the earth is good, and Barth
expresses
the matter as follows:
Good is the earthly life which has its beginning; good is
the earth
which is the scene of this life; good is the twofold form
of life in
which further living creatures are envisaged; good is God's
presence in
the wilderness, and His deliverance from the wilderness, and
His transformation of the wilderness into a garden. It is all
good because,
with the separation of land from water, it all prepares and
prefigures
the history which is to take place on earth, and because
as this
preparation and prefiguration it corresponds to the will and
Word of
God."(69)
We will now draw a few conclusions from Barth's exegesis,
conclusions that
follow directly from his thought, although they are not
directly found in
Barth.
Some Conclusions
In our discussion of light we noted that any object, and
human or
divine relations to that object, existed in relation to the
inter-personal
relations of the covenant. This held true for all created
things, and the
human and divine relations to them. We now wish to narrow our
focus to
objects pertinent to economic life, and economic activities in
relation to
those objects. We defined the technical aspect of economic
life as a
relationship to nature in which its products are used for
economic ends.
Since all relations to objects are related to covenant
relations, the
technical aspect of economic life exists in relation to
covenant, so that
every economic relation to nature is simultaneously a covenant
relation, or
a social historical relation. The creation of the light, the
act of separating night from day, the establishment of the
firmament, the bounding of
the seas, and the formation of dry land with vegetation, all
took place in
the context of social relations between God and his people.
These actions
help sustain bodily existence and are therefore economic actions.
But they
are simultaneously social actions, in that they derive from the
covenant
event of God's election of humanity in Jesus Christ, and express
a social
relationship in that they are expressions of how God cares for
his people.
Furthermore, these economic acts have an historical base.
Their basis is
God's action in creation, and creation is a history with the
result that
God's economic activities are grounded in history. From this
perspective,
the existence of the ordered universe as an economic order, the
light, the
bounded seas, and green earth, are the result of prior social
historical
acts in that the existence and ordering of these objects
occurred as the
result of a social history, the creation history of God's
building a world
for those he intends to love and does love by providing them with
a secure
economic existence. In other words, a given economic condition,
the "economic order" created by God in creation, arose through
and expressed a
prior social history between God and his people. Or,
focusing on the
special history of the covenant that is internal to creation, the
existence
of Israel in Canaan, her economic relation to the land and its
use, was the
expression and the result of social historical events--her
escape from
Egypt, her conquest of the land, and her defense against foreign
invaders.
Each of these historical events entailed relations among
peoples, the
tribes of Israel in relation to the Egyptians, the Canaanites,
and foreign
powers. At each point in history, the relations of peoples
or God to
created objects simultaneously indicate an ongoing social
history, so that
the technical aspect of economic life expresses and is the
consequence of
an ongoing social history. In other words, the technical aspect
of economic life, the condition of how people are relating to the
world's products,
their physical distribution and consumption, will express and
reflect a
prior social history worked out among peoples and with God.
Furthermore,
it can be seen that the technical aspect of economic life is
initiated by,
maintained, and transformed by social relations. God created the
world and
provided food for his people because he first chose Jesus
Christ and all
people in him. This was God's first act outside himself, and
it was a
covenant act, a Word of address expressing his choice of Jesus
Christ and
all people. In order to realize that first act he
subsequently acted
economically by creating the world and sustaining bodily
existence, but
this act was initiated through the prior covenant act of
election. Again,
with respect to the covenant history foreshadowed in creation,
we may note
that God separated the waters before he formed the dry land.
In other
words, Israel entered into political relations with Egyptians
and Canaanites as the initial event of providing for her
economic welfare. And
further, she could maintain the technical aspect of her economic
life only
by keeping the waters at bay, that is, by defending the
land against
foreign invasion. In other words, the technical aspect of
economic life is
initiated and maintained by the social history of the covenant.
Furthermore, the technical economic aspect is transformed
through the social
history of the covenant. In the following chapter we shall
observe how God
radically transforms the economic order through the crucifixion
and resurrection of Jesus Christ. At this point, we may
observe that Israel's
social relations with Egyptians, Canaanites, and foreign
powers, were
significant in determining who related to the land and who
benefited from
its resources. The land, so to speak, functioned as an
"object of
exchange," between nations, or even with God, in that it was
fought over
between nations, given in God's grace, and withheld in his
judgment. As
these social relations unfolded, various peoples related to
the land in
varying relations, and these transformations of technical
life were
reflected in who benefited from its resources. Finally,
recalling that
covenant is the goal of creation, we may now summarize our
results to this
point. The technical aspect of economic life, as well as its
political or
social aspects, have their basis in social history. Within
that context,
economic life expresses and is directed toward a social history,
and it is
initiated, maintained, and transformed by the social history of
the covenant. Since economic life has its basis in social
history, politically
responsible action in economic affairs, including changes in the
technical
aspect of who benefits from the land and its wealth, will
require social
actions among nations, classes, or persons. Strictly economic
measures,
changes in interest and exchange rates, devaluations of the
currency,
changes in money supply, and so forth, may effect changes in
an economic
system, but they will not reflect substantial changes unless
the social
basis of the system itself, the balance of power between
classes and
nations, is altered by historical action. We shall discuss this
in greater
detail in the final chapter.
Finally, and this will be corroborated as we continue
both in this
chapter and in the following chapter, we may note that control
of the land
is a central theme in transforming technical life. This is
apparent in
that Barth gives the Exodus, the Conquest, and Exile a
prominent part in
his exegesis. We shall make the struggle for control, whether
of the land
or the economic system in general, the linchpin of our economic
analysis of
the final chapter. We may now draw one final conclusion before
continuing
with Barth's exegesis.
In light of Barth's exegesis up to this point we may
also observe
that economic motives are influential in determining political
objectives.
God's motive in gathering together the waters was to provide
a viable
economic life. That is, economic life not only has its basis in
political
decisions, but political decisions have economic life as one
of their
primary motives. Economic motives are not, however, the final
motives.
God's final aim was covenant, enhanced relations among
peoples. One of
our conclusions in the next chapter will be that this final aim
of covenant
can become subverted, and that the drive for economic gain to the
exclusion
of social well-being can become a dominant force in political
affairs. In
that case an empirical analysis must illumine how this drive
works itself
out in political and economic decisions. But from God's point
of view, in
light of his actions, economic life must be attended to for the
sake of the
covenant, and he does so through his work on the third day.
We will conclude our discussion at this point with an
observation
relevant to our empirical analysis of the final chapter. We wish
to determine the starting point for such an analysis, or to
separate the essential
from the non-essential in presenting such an analysis. At this
point in
our investigation we may notice that God has created and ordered
a number
of realities which pertain to economic life. We may think of
the light,
the firmament, the dry land, and vegetation. Focusing,
however, on those
matters that pertain most directly to economic existence, we
observe that
God creates the vegetation on the third day, v. 11, and on the
sixth day,
v. 29, he gives this vegetation to his newly created people for
food. The
fact that the earth produces food and that human beings can
consume it are
phenomena which belong to the external reality of creation. We
have called
this aspect of economic life its technical aspect. With
respect to the
technical aspect of economic life, the biblical writers at this
point are
solely concerned with the growth of vegetation and its
consumption. What
we observe here will be corroborated in greater detail in
subsequent sections and above all in the following chapter.
From the point of view of
contemporary economics, no mention is made of other factors
which could
belong to the technical aspect of economic life, such as capital,
interest,
exchange rates, and balance of payments. The primary matter of
interest is
the productiveness of the earth, and its endpoint, human
consumption. In
the final chapter we will present an economic analysis with a
social historical base. Our starting point for the technical
aspect of this analysis
will be the flow of goods from the earth to people who consume
these goods.
We will abstract from all other technical economic matters, and
consider
only the transformation of food and raw materials from their
origins in the
earth to their final formation into products for meeting human
needs. We
will observe that there are streams or webs of materials,
flowing from
their sources in the earth, being united and transformed
(productive labor)
into usable products, and finally contributing to human welfare
or the lack
of it. Since, from a Barthian perspective, the streams have
their basis in
social history, it will be our task to discover what sorts
of social
actions gave rise to these flows of goods, and how further
political action
may reroute these flows in directions consonant with God's
purposes as
revealed in the covenant.
Days Four and Five
Our treatment of the next two days may be relatively
brief. On the
fourth day the sun, moon, and stars are created.(70) What
exactly do these
luminaries do? Specifically, they do three things: first, they
rule over
the day and night and divide the day (light) from the night
(darkness) (v.
14,16, 18); they are signs (v. 14); and they shed light upon the
earth (v.
15,17). Except for their nature as signs, each of these
activities is a
concrete material indication of what God himself had previously
done and,
and given the cumulative nature of the account, continued to do.
God had
already divided the day from night on the first day, and this
light was
already shining on the earth when God created the dry land on
day three.
These luminaries, as heavenly bodies, merely reflect the prior
action of
God and follow upon his Word. They are also significant as
signs, and as
such indicate the existence of history and time. God created
time on the
first day by dividing the first day from the night. On day four
he creates
the heavenly bodies to mediate this time, so that by them the
creatures he
forms on the sixth day will be able historically to orient
themselves.
These luminaries have no divine power within themselves (the
view of
ancient astrology), nor are they simply the measure of
undifferentiated
chronology (a scientific view). Their relevance is their
function in the
covenant, their enabling God's covenant partners to direct
themselves in
history toward social ends. From this point of view, each
moment is the
time of the covenant, the time of hearing God's Word, the time
of acting
against the forces of chaos. In Barth's words:
The signs of the sky are of no value for the man who is
merely concerned at random to orientate himself with the help of
compass, clock
or calendar, and to become the subject of any earthly
history. They
are of value only for the man whose day, season, and
history are to
consist in his participation in the separation of light from
darkness,
because the God who separated the light from darkness has
created him
in and as his own image, and because he was born and is
called to be
God's partner in the covenant.(71)
In verse 18 God calls these luminaries good. Their goodness, of
course, is
that they as created objects function in the covenant according
to God's
reign in that they enable human beings to join with him in the
struggle
against darkness in all its forms. Finally, Barth points out
that the
history of the covenant, and therefore this particular task of
the heavenly
bodies, comes to an end in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and
his future
return. At that time the struggle with chaos will be over.
The heavenly
bodies will no longer mediate, for God will be present and
visible in his
own eternal light.
We will now consider the events of the fifth day.(72) On
this day God
created the fish and the birds to inhabit the seas and the skies.
God saw
that they were good and blessed them. Our treatment may be
brief. First
we may note that the fish and birds live in close proximity to
the threatening seas, the seas separated from the dry land as in
verse nine, and the
celestial sea which was walled off in verse seven by the
firmament. These
creatures live in these regions, but they are not brought forth
from them
as vegetation was brought forth from the earth in verse eleven.
A new verb
form is used in verse twenty to indicate the coming into being of
the birds
and fishes, and this form indicates their direct creation by
God, their
relative independence from the rest of creation, and the fact
that they did
not emerge from the seas.(73) As such they indicate God's
power over the
waters of chaos represented by the seas and skies, as well as the
sterility
of chaos to bring forth life. As living beings, capable of
movement and
therefore similar to humanity, they inspire confidence as
they inhabit
those terrifying regions in close proximity to the inchoate
waters. As
such their function is to inspire confidence in God's grace, to
witness to
his mercy. The mention of great whales (the terrifying sea
monsters who
mythically represent the supposed dark and terrifying aspects of
life), in
verse 21, is a bit of Old Testament demythologizing, affirming
the impotence of evil in the face of God's original good
creation. No other
specific animals are mentioned in God's creation on the fifth
day. Once
again, the primary meaning of created beings, in this case fish
and birds,
is their final significance in the covenant, in that fish and
birds witness
to God's power over the waters of chaos by inhabiting the seas
and skies.
For the first time in the creation story, v. 22, God blesses
some of the
beings he has created. The blessing of the fish and birds is a
specific
act within creation and an intimation of the covenant in the
heart of
creation. They require blessing because we are now moving
closer to the
creation of men and women. Men and women possess the power of
independent
motion and, like the animals, are creatures of movement and
choice. As
such, they are able to function within creation only by the
continued grace
of God. The relevance of this will now become more appa rent
as we discuss
God's action on the sixth day, the creation of animals and
humanity.
The Sixth Day
On the sixth day God creates, in two acts, the animals
and human
kind. We will not discuss the creation of the animals, but
will pass at
once to the creation of men and women, as this, in Barth's
opinion, is the
climax of the first six days of work. We will discuss
several inter-related matters--creation in the image of God,
God's blessing upon the
human race, and his command to multiply and have dominion over
the earth
and its denizens.
The creation of the human race begins in verse twenty-six
with the
statement "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness . .
. " Creation in God's image is emphasized again in the following
verse where, three
times in quick succession, it is said that God creates, twice
emphasizing
creation in God's image, and ending with the statement that
humanity was
created male and female. The verb used in the thrice-repeated
emphasis is
the one used in the creation of the fish and birds, and in
contrast to the
verb used to designate the growth of the vegetables from the
earth, denotes
that human beings possess a distinctive autonomy with respect to
creation
by virtue of God's direct creative act. This distinctiveness is,
according
to Barth, to be found in several entirely new features with
respect to
God's creation of humanity. They are, the "Let us" of verse 26,
the image
of God, and connected with this image, the male and female of
verse 27.
These three novel features belong together and their
interpretation belongs
to Barth's anthropology. Although Barth's anthropology is
pertinent to our
pursuits, it is not within the main channel, and we will
therefore restrict
ourselves to indicating only certain salient features and their
significance for our endeavor.(74)
The essence of the three novel features lies in their
pointing to the
fact that God and his people exist only as beings in the event
of encounter. Within himself, God exists only in the
inner-triune encounter of
three modes related by two issues (1.1). Outside himself, God
creates his
people only in his image, as persons in encounter (1.4). The
"Let us" of
v. 26 refers to Trinity,(74) and outside himself, creating in
God's image
means creating each person as existing and able to exist
only through
relations with others, the male/female relation, v. 27, being
the primary
type of the human encounter. The event of encounter, the I/Thou
relationship between persons is the image of God in humanity,
and corresponds in
its very dissimilar human sphere to the personal encounter
within the
triune God.(76) It is this image which makes human beings human.
Apart from
social relationship human beings cannot be fully human. The
community,
human beings in social solidarity, exists as the image of God.
The solitary individual is not God's image since the image
requires mutual encounter and relationships among people. This
is reflected in v. 27 in that God
creates humanity as male and female. In subsequent biblical
usage, marriage, personal encounter between man and woman,
will be used to indicate
Israel's relation to Yahweh and Christ's relation to the
church.(77) Only in
relations with others can persons be themselves, or express
their unique
essence. Existence in social solidarity with others does not of
necessity
crush individuality. But rather, it is its expression, being
analogous to
Spirit which exists as the love between the Father and the Son.
The human
essence is crushed when the self, rather than choosing freely to
enter into
relations with others, chooses instead to live only unto
itself or to
assert its will against others without mutual cooperation and
service.
The image of God is an event. Like all analogies of
God in the
created sphere it is not a static reality, nor is it a human
possession.
It is given in grace as an event, and therefore, God's first act
subsequent
to his creation of male and female is to bless them (verse
28).(78) By means
of God's blessing people are empowered to communicate with one
another and
to act together. Since God's grace occurs as history, through
events of
divine action, the human essence is historical as well.
Persons are who
they are in the history of their acts of relatedness. Rather
than the word
"Jesus Christ," Barth will often use the words "the history
of Jesus
Christ," calling attention to the fact that there is no
non-historical
essence behind Jesus Christ, but Jesus is precisely who he
is in his
history of acts centering in his relationship to God and to
others. Since
God's grace is Jesus Christ, and since personhood is
constituted through
grace as repeated events of encounter, Jesus Christ is the
foundation of
all personhood.(79) The history of the covenant as events of
personal relatedness forms the central history of all personal
interactions. In the
fourth chapter we shall see that Jesus Christ is the head of his
community,
Israel and the church, and by means of this community he is
forming a new
humanity in God's image. By means of the covenant, the primary
history of
Jesus Christ, God acts to redeem persons, understood as those
in need of
events of grace by which God relates his people to himself
and to one
another in community. The result of the foregoing is that
personhood has
its basis in social history, in the social history of the
covenant of Jesus
Christ. In conclusion, the image of God expresses itself in
human community as given through events of personal encounter.
It has its roots in
God's triune nature, and is actualized as human history by God's
continued
grace in Jesus Christ. For this reason the "Let us" of verse 26,
the image
of God, male and female, and God's blessing as God's continued
Word of
grace, are brought into closest proximity in Gen. 1:26-28. We
may draw one
major conclusion from the foregoing.
The Social Form of Economic Responsibility
The triune God took responsibility for economic life.
That is the
overwhelming conclusion of this entire account. God created a
world for
his people, and provided for their bodily well-being. Secondly,
his economic activities take a social historical form in that
they have their basis
in the covenant. God in himself exists in encounter, and all
his works
reflect the social historical form of his inner-triune being.
The work of
creation as appropriated under God the Father is in indissoluble
connection
with the covenant history of the Son, and it reaches its final
consummation
in a new heaven and new earth appropriated as the work of the
Holy Spirit.
Each mode of the Trinity works in conjunction with the other
modes, and
only in that form is it the work of the one God. In this work
of the one
triune God the created realities, the old and new creations,
function as
the means whereby God expresses his love for his creatures and
provides for
their economic well-being. In the very dissimilar human sphere
there is a
correspondence. If human beings act in response to God's
grace, and if
their works remain truly human, then economic life can have its
basis only
in social history, through events of relatedness in which
people work
together to provide the external basis of social life.
Subject to the
command of God, communities and persons are called to utilize
the economic
objects of the created world to express their solidarity and
concern for
one another. In making these comments we have not yet arrived
specifically
at how and to what degree the political realm is responsible for
economic
life. We have merely said that human action will take a social
historical
form if it is truly human.(80) We will address this matter more
concretely
in the fourth chapter when we discuss the state as a responsible
institution.
Although we will discuss the matter more specifically in
the fourth
chapter, we can pause at this point to ask if creation reveals
any distinctive social forms through which economic life may be
organized. Is there,
for example, an order of creation that divides humanity into
various races
or classes, which then pursue their own economic aims
independently or even
at the expense of one another. When God creates human beings he
does not,
contrary to his creation of the animals, create the human race
in distinct
groupings divided up according to its kind. There is only one
form of
differentiation, male and female. There is, according to
the first
account, and this holds in the second account as well, no order
of creation
by which humanity is divided into races, classes, or nations.
"What distinguishes him from the beasts? According to Gen. 1,
it is the fact that
in the case of man the differentiation of sex is the only
differentiation.
Man is not said to be created or to exist in groups and species,
in races
and peoples, etc."(81) Two observations may be made at this
point. First,
the creation saga is the time of God's good creation, and sin is
not a part
of its history. Distinct classes and nations do not occur
until Genesis
eleven (the tower of Babel), and then as a part of the
history of the
covenant by which God curbs the destructive power of human sin by
confusing
the human language. We shall discuss this matter in chapter
four, and one
of our major conclusions will be that the state is not an order
of creation. Secondly, the existence of only one human family
in creation implies
that the economic benefits of creation as well as the economic
commands of
creation, are given to the human family as a whole and not to
specific
classes, races, or nations. There is not, in other words,
an order of
creation that distinguishes certain classes or nations from
others with
respect to economic benefits. There are, however, distinctions
among peoples with respect to economic benefits in the sphere of
the covenant, and
we shall discuss them in the following chapter.
In the context of our present discussion, we may raise a
question
pertinent to our economic analysis of the final chapter. We
have distinguished between the human relationship to nature
including its economic
elements, and the social relations among persons as events of
encounter.
Which of these two relations differentiate human beings into
distinctive
social units? Or, to use current terminology, which
differences are the
more decisive, class or national differences? In the present
context we
may note that economic life is appropriated by Barth to
creation, that it
is implicit in the Genesis narratives we have been considering,
and that it
entails no division into various economic classes. With respect
to technical economic activities, the relationship to nature and
the material means
of production, humanity is still one. In chapter four we
shall observe
that social divisions among people are a result of sin. Barth
discusses
sin in the context of covenant. In the sphere of the covenant,
nationality, a common language, geographical locale, and shared
history, predominate over the relationship to nature or to the
means of production.(82) This
is to be expected from Barth; his theology is a theology of the
Word of
God, and a shared language is of greater weight than a common
economic lot.
Nevertheless, having said this, we hasten to add that Barth
allows for the
possibility that many factors contribute to social formations,
and these of
course include economic considerations. In his words,
"Economic, social,
cultural, political and religious factors are the historical
realities
which underlie the existence and distinction of peoples. These
can be very
serious. They can go much deeper than any physical differences.
They can
cut right across the differences of language and location."(83)
In the final
chapter we will analyze certain economic and political relations
with Latin
America with a greater emphasis on relations among nations
rather than
class. In general, we will tend to place common language and
national
history near the forefront as forming differing social
groupings, and
modify that position in light of other factors which may seem
important to
our economic discussion of the final chapter.
God's First Commands
God concludes his final day of work with a series of
commands pertinent to economic life. These commands, directed to
the whole human family,
are that they should have the seeds and fruits of plants for
food (verse
29), and that they multiply and fill the earth (verse 28).
Several comments are in order. First, we may notice that God's
first commands pertain
to economic life. The emphasis in creation is the relationship
to nature,
and God's concern is with physical procreation, access to the
land, and
food. Secondly, God's first words, v. 28-29, pertaining to
their use of
the land and its produce, are preceded by God's blessing, v.
28a. This is
due to the fact, and Barth makes this point, that the economic
activities
of controlling the land and utilizing its produce can be carried
out only
in the context of covenant, and under the leadership of God's
grace.
To the particularity of the blessing granted first to beasts
and then
to men there corresponds the whole particularity of the fact
that it is
now possible for both to make use of this permission and
promise.
Provision is made for the practicability of their activity,
but only in
this way: "Behold, I have given you." . . . God's table
will always
be abundantly spread for all.(84)
Although the use of the land and the consumption of its products
belong by
appropriation to creation, their utilization has its basis in
the grace of
the covenant. The covenant, however, deals with another
reality not
directly envisioned in creation. It deals with sin. No sin is
envisioned
in God's original creation, though it has been invaded by sin,
and this is
readily apparent from the fact that God's original commands
have been
violated. The existence of mass hunger, dispossessed peoples,
and starvation is ready evidence of that fact. In the sphere
of covenant, God's
commands to possess the land and eat of its produce may and can
be revoked,
and in the case of Jesus they are revoked in that he bore the
effects of
economic sin through fasting, dispossession, and physical death.
We shall
examine this matter in the following chapter.
The commands to eat in verses twenty-nine and thirty
refer only to
the eating of vegetation. Human beings are commanded to eat
seeds and
fruit, while the animals eat the coarser vegetation. In so far
as creation
is concerned, there is nothing inherently violent about
economic life,
whether it be class warfare, or the impoverishment of certain
segments of
the population as the supposed price for capitalist
advancement.(85) Killing
is not envisioned, just as the division into classes and
nations is not
envisioned. Revolution, killing, nations, states, and
political life,
belong to another order, the order of the covenant, and not the
order of
creation. The fact that killing occurs, that God required animal
sacrifice
of Israel, requires a different perspective.(86) But it does
not belong to
God's original intent, and even in the domain of the covenant it
is only an
interim regulation, whose necessity will be superseded on the
final eschatological day.
Finally, we may note that God's commands to subdue the
earth and to
eat are the fulfillment of his work of the preceding days, and
especially
of his work on day three. These commands are spoken just
prior to the
seventh day which is a day of rest and fellowship. As such they
indicate
once more the external necessity of creation. The social
fellowship of the
seventh day is possible only because of God's prior work, and
only in light
of the satisfaction of bodily needs. In this connection we may
note that
God ends his creation on the sixth day with the statement that
it is not
only good, but "very good" (verse thirty-one). It is very good
because on
the sixth day God creates people who, by his continued blessing,
are enabled to live together as his covenant partners. It is
very good, because,
in contrast to the good of the previous days, the aim of
creation, the
covenant, has been reached on the sixth and final day of work.
This is
reflected in the words "And it was so." (verse 30) which refer to
the whole
of God's prior creation whose goodness "means concretely
that it was
adapted to the purpose which God had in view; adapted to be the
external
basis of His covenant of grace."(87) We must now consider the
seventh day.
The Seventh Day
We now come to the seventh and final day.(88) Although
the actual
construction of creation ended with the sixth day, the history
of creation
did not end there. The seventh day is allotted its span of
time as were
the previous days, and is characterized by its own peculiar
activity. On
the seventh day God ended his work, he rested, and then he
blessed and
sanctified the sabbath day. With respect to the seventh day,
we may make
three observations. First, by blessing and sanctifying the
Sabbath day God
set it aside for a particular purpose. Its purpose is covenant
fellowship
with his creatures. It is a day of felicitous personal
interaction, a day
for hearing the Word of God, and for resting from one's labor
for the sake
of fellowship. All of creation led up to that day, and in
that day God
rested from his former work for he had arrived at his goal.
With the realisation of man all creation received its
culmination and
meaning. When man had been realised before Him, God
ceased from His
work of creation. He halted at this boundary. He was
satisfied with
what He had created and had found the object of His love.
It was with
man and his true humanity, as His direct and proper
counterpart, that
God now associated Himself in his true deity. Hence the
history of the
covenant was really established in the event of the seventh
day.(89)
Secondly, as the seventh day, the Sabbath is a definite part of
creation
time. It occupies a day of creation as did the other days. It
belongs to
creation, and therefore indicates the covenant that exists at
the heart of
creation. The existence of the seventh day brings creation
into relation
with covenant, and relates the work of God the Father to the
specific work
of God the Son in Incarnation.(90) It is the reality of the
unity of the one
God, and the fact that God can continue to act within creation
through the
special history of the covenant. In Barth's view, were creation
limited to
six days, it would have no integral connection to covenant, and
to God's
act in his Son. Finally, Barth points out that the seventh day
for God is
the first day for humanity, and that this first day begins with
grace. All
has been prepared for his covenant creatures. Without any work
on humanity's part they receive the fruits of God's labor on
the first of their
days. In this way their life begins with covenant, with grace,
and their
economic life, their daily work, is initiated by grace as well.
In Barth's
words:
Rest, freedom and joy were not just before him. He had no
need to
"enter" into them. He could already proceed from them,
commence with
them. They had already taken place. He had already sat at
the divine
wedding feast, and having eaten and drunk could now
proceed to his
daily work. The "Lord's Day" was really his first day.(91)
In this fashion God took economic responsibility for his
creatures. He
provided for their every need before they asked, without their
prior merit,
and before they had done any work. The Sabbath rest as the
time of God's
unmerited grace is the result of God's labor, and we shall
discover that it
lies at the heart of Jesus' work as well. We may conclude
this section
with a brief comment on work.
Work entails a relationship to nature; in six days God
created the
external material world and ordered it as a sanctuary for his
people. The
relationship to nature given in work is simultaneously a social
relationship as well in that the purpose of all work is to serve
others. God's six
days of labor was an expression of his love for his creatures,
the way in
which he concretely served them by meeting their material needs.
All work
is service, whether it be done willingly or unwillingly, and
the consumption or use of objects produced by work is a social
act in which those who
create or produce the objects serve those who use them. This
follows from
the fact that all objects, and relations to those objects,
including work,
have their basis in the social history of the covenant. In
God's case, he
worked because he loved, and his work is the expression of the
social fact
of his love. We shall discuss this in greater detail in
the second
account, and to that we may now turn.
The Second Account
Introduction
We now come to the second creation account, Gen. 2:4b-25.
The first account was concerned with the architectonic creation
of the external basis
of the covenant. In the second account we look at creation
from the
inside, and therefore, in much closer proximity to its basis the
covenant.
Barth exegetes the second account under the title "The
Covenant as the
Internal Basis of Creation." The second account is not a
continuation, or
as it has often been interpreted, a supplement to the the first
account.
It stands on its own feet, and must be seen in its own right as
a second
and distinct account of creation which views creation from
another and
important perspective. "Hence the second of the accounts must
be read as
if it were the only one. And superfluous though it may seem
after reading
the first account, the whole problem and theme must be
reconsidered from
another angle."(92) The subject matter is of course the same,
creation, but
since this second account is in much closer proximity to the
covenant, its
primary concern is with the human drama of God's dealings with
the people
that he has made. Our interest, of course, will be upon
economic matters
and their relation to the covenant. Since the second account
differs from
the first, we shall obtain additional results on how economic
life and
covenant are related. These new results, do not, in our view,
contradict
our previous conclusions. The two accounts together, at least
with respect
to the issue that concerns us, work out to give complementary
perspectives,
which, when taken together, enable us to approach the
fundamental issue
that stands before us. The fact that we obtained our previous
results from
the first account by bringing it into connection with the
covenant will
mean that the distance between the first and second accounts
is not as
great as might at first appear. As we proceed we will compare
and contrast
both accounts, and thereby arrive at a deeper awareness of how
economic
life and covenant are related. Our treatment of this second
account will
be somewhat shorter than our work with the first account. This
is due to
at least two reasons. First, the second account corroborates
some of our
previous results and therefore we do not need to discuss them
here in great
detail. Secondly, the second account is more intimately
concerned with
covenant. The heart of the covenant is Jesus Christ, and we will
therefore
discuss the most significant material relating to covenant in the
following
chapter on the economic aspects of Barth's Christology. Unlike
our treat
ment of the first account which proceeded day by day, we will
begin with an
overview of the text, and then follow Barth's exegesis which
takes place in
three segments, Gen 2:4b-7, Gen. 2:8-17, and Gen. 2:18-25.
Overview of the Second Account
The second account begins with Gen. 2:4b and the
statement, "In the
day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, . . .
" In this
statement two things may be noted at once. The first is a new
name for
God, Yahweh Elohim. The name "Yahweh," here introduced for the
first time,
is the name of the tribal God of the early Hebrews, and, as
such, intimately connected with the giving of the Law and the
forming of the covenant
between Yahweh and Israel by which Israel came into existence as
a people.
The introduction of this name indicates that we are in closer
proximity to
the history of the covenant. Secondly, we may note that verse
four says
that the Lord God created the earth and the heavens, in
contrast to the
heavens and the earth of Gen. 1:1.(93) This reversal of order
indicates that
from the very beginning the emphasis in this second account is
the earth,
and as the account progresses it becomes even more specific and
concrete.
The narrative passes rapidly from the creation of earth and
heaven, v. 4b,
to the creation of humanity, v. 7. The creation of the
external world is
compressed into one sentence, vv. 4b-6, and the narrative hastens
on to its
true theme, the creation of the human race, verse 7. After the
creation of
the human race, there is at once a narrowing of focus, the scene
shifts to
one specific place, Eden (verse 8). There is even a hint as to
its location, it is "in the east," v. 8, and rivers flow out
of it, some of which
are known. This is followed by a transition to a specific
person Adam, v.
15, whereas in v. 7 God created humanity in general and
breathed on them
the breath of life. This narrowing of focus is the means
whereby the
biblical history brings creation into organic connection with
the history
of the covenant. Adam is still humanity in general, but he is
humanity
seen from the point of view of a specific place, that is,
Eden. Adam
represents the specific people Israel, and Eden their land
Canaan; from
that vantage point the whole is considered. The focus on
humanity proceeds
by two sections, humanity in general, vv. 4b-7, and then the
specific
history of Israel, v. 8, and following. "But as the first
section has the
earth in view, so the second has a definite place on earth, the
region of
the undivided river, the Garden of Eden. It is in this place
that the
totality is considered."(94) Adam is placed in a garden where he
works as a
gardener, and in this garden are placed two trees, the tree of
life and the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil. These trees do not
exist outside
the garden. They correspond to Israel's having, alone among
the nations,
received the Word of God, both gospel and Law. Then Eve is
created from
Adam's rib. Their history is given, they sin, and their sin is
the revelation of all sin. They are cast out of the garden.
They beget children,
and among their descendents is one Abraham, and from him the
biblical
narrative continues in the special history of the covenant which
culminates
in Jesus Christ. Although these particular events form only a
very slender
thread among the myriad of worldly events, they are, according
to Barth,
the set of events which reveal who God is and what he intends
for his
creation. It is from the point of view of the covenant, and
ultimately
from its center Jesus Christ, that we are able to understand
the whole,
both inwardly and outwardly.
In light of this overview of the second account, we may
note that it
telescopes rapidly to a specific place, Eden, and then to a
specific person
Adam, and continues from there with the events of Eve's
creation, their
fall, and the ensuing history of the covenant. In comparison to
the first
account, the major difference in this overview is that the second
turns its
gaze immediately to the covenant history that lies within
creation. It is
much less concerned with the external framework of creation as
created day
by day. Its concern is humanity, and the social history of
the covenant
which has its basis in Jesus Christ. In this sense the second
account is
more transparent to the presence of Jesus Christ. In Barth's
view, Jesus
Christ is the true and original Adam, and the second account
speaks of him
though in a veiled and hidden way. In the following chapter we
will speak
directly of the history of Jesus Christ. Since creation speaks
of Jesus
Christ, we will be in a position to relate what we learn
here to our
results there. That we can do so, however, has its basis in the
fact that
Jesus Christ is the basis of creation, and his presence is
particularly
visible in this second account if it is exegeted
Christologically. Therefore Barth will say:
The main interest now is not how creation promises,
proclaims, and
prophecies the covenant, but how it prefigures and to
that extent
anticipates it without being identical with it; not how
creation prepares the covenant, but how in so doing it is itself
already a unique
sign of the covenant and a true sacrament; not Jesus
Christ as the
goal, but Jesus Christ at the beginning (the beginning just
because He
is the goal) of creation. This is what we have now to
maintain and
appreciate. It must be conceded at once that without the
existence of
the second narrative we could hardly have the temerity to do
this. But
since the Bible offers us this second account we must and
may attempt
it.(95)
We may now begin with the first of the three sections exegeted by
Barth.
Gen. 2:4b-7(96)
Gen. 2:4b-7 begins with the creation of the earth and
heavens and
ends with God's breathing the breath of life into his newly
formed human
race. The earth, as initially created by God (verses 4b and
5), was
barren, no vegetation grew upon it. This was due to two
missing factors.
First, God had not yet watered the ground, and secondly, there
was no one
to till it. In verses six and seven God supplies these lacks by
watering
the ground with a mist and by creating the human race out of
the dust of
the ground and then breathing into them the breath of life. The
word "man"
as used in verse seven, and throughout the account, is the
Hebrew word
"adam." It derives from the word "adamah" which means the
earth as a
cultivated field.(97) Two observations flow from the etymology
of this word
as well as the meaning of the text itself. First, human
beings were
created for a specific task, to till the earth; and secondly,
they are
material or bodily--they are made of dust.
Adam thus means man of the earth or field or soil, the
husbandman. In
Latin, too, homo derives from humus. According to v. 5, this
name must
primarily mean that man is destined for the earth, for its
service,
i.e., its cultivation. But there is also the more precise
meaning that
he is himself of the earth, that he is taken from it by
God's creative
act, that he is formed out of the earth, that he is
distinguished from
the rest of the earth.(98)
In reference to the first observation, human beings are workers,
they work
as agricultural laborers. This is one aspect of their essence.
In the
previous account we concluded that human beings are essentially
beings in
encounter. They exist only in personal relationships. This
emphasis
receives an even stronger affirmation here in this second
account as seen
in God's fellowship with Adam in the garden and the creation of
Eve. But,
since the second account focuses more on humanity, additional
elements
appear which relate to the human essence. In particular,
the account
indicates that the human essence can be expressed only through
work. This
emphasis is strengthened by the fact that v. 5, in contrast to
the first
account, does not say that the plants are to be brought into
being to feed
human beings, but rather human beings are brought into
existence to tend
plants. Agricultural work is virtually seen as an end in itself.
It is to be noted how different this is from the first
account, which
is far more anthropocentric at this point, suggesting that
the world of
vegetation was ordained and created only to be the food of
men and
animals. For in this account [the second] it is a kind
of end in
itself. The perfect earth is not a dry, barren or dead
earth, but one
which bears shrubs and vegetation and is inhabited. God will
plant it.
But to make that which has been planted thrive, God needs the
farmer or
gardener. This will be the role of man.(99)
That human beings are to till the earth, in the first
instance, is not
because they need to do so in order to secure the external
material necessities of life. It is because God has given the
earth a hope in its own
right, and the "hope of the arid, barren, and dead earth is
that it will
bear the vegetation planted by God."(100) Human beings labor to
fulfill that
hope. The earth requires constant care, each year it brings
forth its
vegetation. The work is continuous, and the command of God is
to do this
work. "In spite of all the particular things that God may plan
and do with
him, in the first instance man can only serve the earth and
will continually have to do so."(101) In a future section we
shall emphasize the social
or covenant aspects of work, here the emphasis is on work in its
technical
aspect as a relation to nature. When it speaks of humanity
being created
to work, the creation saga means all human beings. We may
recall at this
point that creation does not envision any divisions into classes
and races.
All human beings are created for work; all are workers. It
follows that
God did not create a leisure class, nor did he create a
society that
creates a leisure class. He created all as Adam, as gardeners,
with tasks
to perform, seen here as ordaining human beings to till the soil
as an end
in itself. The nature of work, its basis and norm, is found
first and
foremost in Jesus Christ and his covenant which began in
Israel. It is
through the social history of the covenant that work is to be
understood,
and by means of that social history the earth is renewed
through work.
Work and all economic activities have their basis in covenant.
This is the
final meaning of Gen. 2:4b-7.
If we do not deny but believe this, we shall press forward
to a final
and deepest meaning of the content of the passage. He,
Jesus Christ,
is the man whose existence was necessary for the
perfecting of the
earth; for the redemption of its aridity, barrenness and
death; for the
meaningful fulfillment of its God-given hope; and
especially for the
realization of the hope of Israel.(102)
In relation to Jesus Christ and Israel, however, work, the
cultivation of
the earth, is the responsibility of all human beings whose
created essence
has its basis in Jesus Christ as the one who works to renew the
earth. In
the following chapter we shall discover how Jesus' work effects
the renewal
of the earth and assures its bounty for all people.
According to verse seven, the "Lord God formed man of the
dust of the
ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and
man became a
living being."(103) Several observations are in order. First,
the breath of
God is, in one sense, no different from the blessing of God
that in the
first account was given not only to humans, but animals as
well. All
living beings are sustained in life through God's breath. The
only distinction from the first account according to Barth is
that God breathed
life into his people in a most intimate and personal way--he
"breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life." This intimate, personal
breath is
the grace of God--his Word, repeated encounters whereby human
beings are
not only animate, but live as responsible covenant partners with
God. Only
in this way are human beings distinguished from the animals.
Human beings
are not distinct from the animals by their cultural
achievements, their
artistic or philosophical capabilities, or their spiritual
qualities. The
only distinction is that they are directly encountered by God.
And this and this alone is the distinguishing feature of
man--his
humanity--according to the passage. And it is to be noted
that this
rests on the wholly free and special election and compassion
of God,
and that it stands or falls with it. As long as it stands,
God, who
can repeat this in-breathing even when man's frame of dust
has returned
to dust, is always the confidence of the one whom He has
elected and
addressed in this way.(104)
Secondly, we may say that human beings are terrestrial, they
come from and
belong to the earth. Human beings are made of the dust, they
are bodily,
and they are directed by God to use their bodily capabilities in
labor to
cultivate the earth. That is the meaning of human life as
given in this
passage, and that is the purpose of God's encountering humanity
as a living
Word. Without God's living Word, human beings return at once
into the
earth, in which case their only hope is in Jesus Christ, in the
resurrection from the dead. The breath of life breathed into the
human nostrils is
the means whereby God animates the barren clay of the human form
so that it
can cultivate the barren earth and give it life. Apart from
the Word of
God, the earth cannot be given its ordained cultivation. Both
earth, and
the human frame, without the Word of God are barren and dead.
It was not by reason of any immediacy to God proper to
himself, but
only by reason of God's free immediacy in His attitude to
him, that he
triumphed over the aridity, barrenness and deadness of the
dust to
which he is still subjected. When we say this we must not
lose sight
here of the beginning of the passage. On the contrary,
we have to
understand the passage as a self-enclosed circle. It is
just because
man, with God as his refuge and hope, can triumph over the
earthliness
of earth from which he comes and to which he must return,
that he is
destined, within the totality of the creaturely world to
serve the
earth as a husbandman and a gardener.(105)
We may note two things at this point. First, God's breath as
an event of
personal encounter is also an economic act in that it sustains
humanity's
bodily existence. The events of the covenant are the basis
through which
bodily existence is maintained. Further, and this will be
strengthened
when we consider Eden, the fruitfulness of the earth, or the
conquest of
its aridity, depends upon God's repeated breaths of personal
fellowship and
care. Economic productivity requires at least three things--it
requires
rain, human work, and fulfilled covenant relations. A
breakdown in the
covenant means a loss of economic vitality. When Jesus
restored the
broken covenant he restored the possibility of humanity's
returning to its
appointed task of tending the earth, and therefore he worked as
the original and true Adam to tend the earth.
Some Contrasts with the First Account
We will conclude our discussion of Gen. 2:4b-7 by
contrasting its
results with some of the results of the first account. First
of all, we
must note that an entirely new element has been introduced at
this point.
The difference found its clearest expression in the fact that
vegetation
served as food in the first account, while in the second human
beings serve
the ground. In light of Barth's overall thought, and
specifically, the
fact that covenant is internal to creation, we must say that
the primary
aim of vegetation is to serve human ends and not vice-versa.
Nevertheless,
in the process of providing food for his creatures God does
something else
as well, something that limits the nature in which human beings
may live
and gather food. The earth has a legitimate need in its own
right. It is
to be respected. It cannot be wantonly exploited or laid
waste. This of
course leads us at once to environmental concerns, and though
significant,
we will consider the matter as beyond the limits of our study.
Furthermore, work is seen here as an aspect of the human
essence. Work is not
simply the business of meeting the external necessities of life.
The first
creation account could lead us to that conclusion in that the aim
of God's
work was to make external provision for his creatures. Work is
an on-going activity which not only meets human needs but
fulfills the human essence
and renews the earth. Were the external necessities provided,
as in Eden,
it would still be the human lot to work, to refresh and beautify
the earth.
Both accounts agree however on the fact that work, and therefore
economic
life, is an activity that requires the grace of God. The breath
of God is
given to enable humanity to till the soil. Economic life
depends upon the
social history of the covenant, upon the vitality of social
relations and
political life. In the first account God alone acted to
overcome chaos,
although our exegesis from the point of view of the covenant
showed that it
entailed such covenant events as the Exodus and Conquest. Here
God acts,
he creates and waters the earth, but Adam has a crucial role
to fill in
overcoming the earth's barrenness. Furthermore, there is a
bodily aspect
to human existence that is emphasized in the second account.
The first
account emphasized the image of God, the reality of the human
encounter.
The second account not only emphasizes the personal encounter
with God, the
breathing into Adam's nostrils, but that Adam was made from
dust. Human
beings are terrestrial beings; they are flesh possessing
legitimate bodily
objectives and needs. There can be no deprecation of the bodily
aspect of
human creation in contrast to what Barth takes to be the Greek
view, or the
view of traditional theology which has always emphasized the
soul and
disregarded the body.(106) Bodily needs and activities are of
the utmost
importance, and there is no salvation without attention to
these bodily
realities.
The man who is called by Him [Jesus] and who takes part in
His way and
work as a recipient and fellow-worker does not only receive
something
to consider and to will and to feel; he enters into bodily
contact and
fellowship. The man who comes to hear of the kingdom of God
comes also
to taste it. He comes to eat and to drink bodily, . . .
"(107)
We may now summarize our results as follows: Barth's
anthropology
holds that human beings are a unity of body and soul (the living
being of
2:7), and that they are maintained and directed by the Word of
God. Barth
rejects the view that there is a third element, the spirit, or
that the
person is a trichotomy of body, soul, and spirit. Rather, the
person is
body and soul, bound together by God's grace which holds body
and soul in
order as spirit, but spirit not as a human possession, but
grace given by
God's Spirit.(108) In other words, there is no ethereal or
eternal spiritual
aspect in the Greek sense, but rather, body and soul, work and
fellowship,
the relation to nature and to others, are of the human essence
and both
must be sustained in and by the the grace of the covenant.
Furthermore,
work not only makes human fellowship possible by supplying
physical needs,
but it has as its aim the fulfillment of the earth, and this in
its own
right. We will now continue Barth's exegesis and investigate
Gen. 2:8-17.
Gen. 2:8-17
Gen. 2:8-17 is the story of the Garden of Eden.(109) Our
study of Eden
will strengthen some of our former conclusions, and will
enable us to
advance several new ideas. We have already spoken of work in its
technical
aspect of relating to the soil; in this section we will discuss
its covenant aspect, and show that all work is an aspect of
the personal relation
of service. We will show that our previous conclusions as to
the centrality of covenant appear in the centrality of Eden,
and that Eden is a
paradigm of God's intended economic life for the whole of
humanity. We
will proceed by first contrasting Eden with the surrounding
world. This
will enable us to perceive Eden's central significance, and how
all economic activity is related to Eden's economic blessedness.
The Centrality of Eden
The name "Eden" means delight, and the Garden of Eden is
pictured as
a place of delight and refreshment. In contrast to the land
outside Eden,
it is eminently fruitful and pleasant. It is like an oasis in
the desert.
"The whole description of this Garden--trees, a spring, and even
a resting
place for man--is obviously that of an oasis."(110) Like an
oasis it is fed
by a spring, which strangely becomes a river. This river
becomes a mighty
torrent and, at the borders of Eden, divides to water
surrounding districts. This torrent can be contrasted with
the mist of v. 6 which had
apparently been effective. It brought forth the shrubs and
herbs of v. 5,
but it had not brought forth trees, which in Eden were a delight
to the eye
and good for food, v. 9.
Where shrubs and herbs were envisioned we now have trees
which God has made
to grow out of the earth. The same is true in respect of the
conditions to
make this possible. The expectation had been rain, but the
fulfillment--the mist has evidently not been ineffective or
niggardly--is a whole river
watering the garden of Eden. So mighty is the river that
contrary to the
usual habits of rivers it later divides into four parts
and fructifies
other great areas outside of Eden.(111)
The image here is that the land outside Eden is a semi-arid
region in
contrast to Eden's lush well-watered land. The lack of
sufficient water
throughout the dryer region is supplied, however, by the river
which bursts
forth from Eden. It divides into four parts, representing the
four points
of the compass, and gushes forth to water the world. In this
way Eden
supplies the world with its water, and with it, the vegetative
abundance
that water brings. Furthermore, along the banks of these
rivers, or at
least according to Barth's exegesis, as a result of their flow,
there are
precious stones and minerals, Gen. 2: 11-12. The earth in all
its usefulness to human beings, agriculture and mining, has
its origin in Eden.
Therefore Barth will say:
The meaning and assertion is undoubtedly that all the
rivers of the
earth and therefore all fertility, all possibility of
vegetation, all
life on earth, have their origin here in Paradise in the
one river
which springs forth from it. If man no longer lives in the
Garden of
Eden, if it has become inaccessible to him, he nevertheless
lives by
the streams and rivers of the earth; wherever there are
fruit-bearing
trees; wherever his labour on the land is not for nothing
but serves
the support of life; by the banks which in their final
and supreme
origin are those of the unknown and yet known, of the lost
and yet real
Paradise. Indeed as the narrative sees it, all the precious
things of
the earth including its minerals, some of which are
enumerated in the
description of the land of Havilah, have their origin in
the river of
blessing which proceeds from Eden. Thus it is not just
life itself,
i. e., the possibility of the life given by God to the earth
and man,
but also all the glory and beauty of this life which have
their origin
in it.(112)
We have given this extended quotation to emphasize a central
point--namely
that Eden is the source of the world's economic vitality, the
source of all
productiveness and life. As such, it is above all, a place
of material
blessedness. Its lush vegetation, particularly its
fruit-bearing trees,
its minerals and precious stones, abundantly fulfill the
economic needs of
its inhabitants, and its waters go forth to water and bless the
world. We
may now ask why Eden is so materially blessed.
The Christological Relevance of Eden
The Garden of Eden saga is creation history. As history,
it takes
place in a specific place. It lies "in the East," v. 8, and
two of its
rivers, the Tigris (Hiddekel) and the Euphrates, can actually
be identified. But, from the point of view of contemporary
geography, Eden cannot
be found. Its location belongs to pre-history, the time and
place prior to
our times and places. Nevertheless, as indicated by the
specific details
of its geography, it is connected to subsequent times and
places. Above
all, it is indissolubly connected to the land of Canaan, and
the history
of the covenant which took place in Canaan.
No Israelite hearer or reader of this saga could be be
surprised to
hear of the act of God the Creator in establishing this
place. For he
himself was witness of an event closely corresponding to it.
He lived
in the midst of the fulfillment of the promise given to his
fathers of
a good land, good above all other lands, and destined to be
the sanctuary of God. Indeed, he lived on its soil and was
sustained by its
fruits.(113)
Although Eden referred to Canaan, and its fruitfulness to
Canaan's material
abundance, it could not be said that Eden became a definite
reality within
Israel's history. The entrance into Canaan and her life in the
land was
only a moment in Israel's history. In its totality, her
history was a
history of bitterness, deprivation, and the loss of her land in
the Exile.
The blessedness of Eden never really occurred, although there
were intimations that God could and would bless the land.
Given the bitterness of
Israel's history, the fact that she was "a chastised, suppressed,
suffering
and lost people, a dying and perishing people,"(114) it could
be asked
whether the hope of Eden was an illusion, or, as Barth asks the
question,
perhaps a "reference to a beautiful dream which dissolved on
awakening?"(115)
The basis of Israel's hope, the secret of the prophetic dream
that Yahweh
someday would redeem the earth beneath Israel's feet and give
her respite
from her enemies, was that she secretly carried in her national
life the
hidden history of Jesus Christ which in due time became manifest
in Jesus
of Nazareth. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of Eden, and,
in Barth's
view, Eden envisions and proclaims the reality of the external
world as it
occurs in the presence of Jesus Christ as the original Adam.
Therefore
Barth will say that there is a connection between Eden and the
history of
Jesus Christ. "Between the picture of Paradise in Gen. 2 on the
one hand,
and the form and work of Jesus Christ on the other, there lies
the full,
free and proper agreement which is not quite so obvious between
Gen. 2 and
3 and Gen. 2 and the history of Israel."(116) Here Barth is
saying that Eden
is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and that its fulfillment cannot
be found in
Israel with its history of suffering and deprivation. This is an
important
point for our purposes. In the following chapter we shall
specifically
consider the work of Jesus Christ. Unless we concretely
connect Jesus
Christ with Eden, it will be possible to emphasize the covenant
aspects of
Jesus' work to such a degree that we lose sight of the fact that
one result
of restoring the covenant is not only reconciliation among
people, but the
restoration of the earth to its intended fruitfulness for the
benefit of
God's creatures. This is, however, affirmed in a
Christological understanding of Eden, namely, that
reconciliation entails the resto ration of a
blessed economic existence. With respect to understanding Eden
Christologically, Barth comments:
If this is true, the Christian reading of the Paradise saga
is valid,
its reference--and therefore the reference of the history
of Israel
prefigured in it--is to a reality: to the way in which
the earth
became a good land at a given place; to the way in which
the man
created by God was given rest in this place by the same God;
to the way
in which the river which was mighty enough to flow through
the whole
land and fructify it had its source there; to the way in
which the
Gospel and the Law, the justification of life by God and its
sanctification for God, were one and the same, as was also
sinful, dying, lost
man and man unreservedly loved and blessed and
glorified.(117)
Keeping in mind the centrality of Eden with respect to the
world around
Eden, the fact that the fruitfulness of Eden is given in Jesus
Christ leads
to the conclusion that the fruitfulness of all life in all times
and places
is found in Jesus Christ. Specifically, the waters of life that
flow from
Eden to fructify the world, have their origin in Jesus
Christ.(118) The
image here is that of Jesus Christ at the center, the garden of
Eden, and
the surrounding world. This image states geographically in
terms of creation what can also be said with respect to covenant,
namely, the centrality
of Jesus Christ, the inner circle of covenant composed of
Israel and the
church, and its outer circle of the nations. Within these
images, Jesus
Christ is origin, center, and goal, so that geographically, Eden
is humanity's original home and our final one as well. When God
placed Adam in the
garden, he claimed it for humanity, and he claimed it through
humanity's
solidarity with the original Adam Jesus Christ. Speaking of
God's placing
Adam in Eden, Gen. 2:8, Barth comments:
It translates the man created by God, "humanity" as such
and absolutely, into a direct and specific divine sphere. It
says that this
specific divine sphere was his original home. It
characterises man's
fall as his unfaithfulness to the law of his original home,
and his
misery as his removal from the glory of this place. And it
also says,
of course, that this specific place will also be God's
final goal for
man.(119)
We may summarize. When God planted Eden, and placed Adam
in it, he
intended for Eden to be the home of all people and for all
people to
receive its blessing. The history of creation, specifically the
Eden saga,
belongs to the history of Jesus Christ. By means of this history
God acts
in the world to bless human beings, and in light of Eden, to
bless them
with economic well-being. As in the first account, we have
concluded that
covenant is central to creation. The matter, however, is more
forcefully
put in the second account, and this will become even clearer as
we discuss
the relevance of the two trees.
Two Trees
According to Gen. 2:16-17 God has placed two special
trees in Eden,
the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
These two
trees indicate God's presence in the garden, and that, in
contrast to the
surrounding lands, Eden is God's special dwelling place. The
first tree,
the tree of life, is the center of Paradise.(120) It indicates
that Eden is
the Holy of Holies. God dwells there, and all life in Eden,
and the life
that flows out of Eden to nourish the world, is the direct gift
of God who
dwells in Eden.
And so the tree of life is really the centre of Paradise;
the sign of
life as God gave it to man at his creation and as he was
permitted to
live it as a divine favour; the sign of the home in which man
was given
rest by God because God Himself, and therefore the source of
his life,
was no problem to him, but present and near without his so
much as
having to stretch out his hand. In the beginning there was
this joyful
message of life.(121)
Not only does the tree of life indicate that God supplies
humanity's material needs, but also it indicates that God
himself dwells in Eden, and that
he desires fellowship with his newly formed creatures. In that
sense Eden
is the completion and basis of the fellowship of God with
humanity begun
when God breathed the breath of life into Adam's nostrils. In
Eden God
lives together with his creatures in a community based on
love, mutual
respect, and communication.
Here, in what the tree both represents and offers, the
Creator is
present with the creature which He has placed in it. God
wills to be
recognized, honoured and loved by man in what this tree
represents and
offers. While He gives man the enjoyment of the whole
Garden and all
its trees, by the planting of the tree of life in its
midst God
declares that His primary, central and decisive will is to
give him
Himself.(122)
Two things may be noted, God gives himself to Adam in the
personal fellowship of the covenant, and as he does so he
creates the external material
basis of that fellowship by planting Eden and placing Adam in
the Garden.
That is, the giving of himself on God's part is not divorced
from his
taking responsibility for Adam's economic well-being. It is
God who
planted Eden, and God who placed Adam in that Garden, v. 8. We
now come to
a significant point for our consideration. Adam's continued
well-being,
both economic and social, was wholly dependent upon his
relation to God.
Economic well-being depends upon covenant. He was directly
sustained,
materially and socially, by God's presence as indicated by the
tree of
life. Furthermore, his relationship to God was guarded by a
prohibition,
as attested in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.(123)
The tree of
the knowledge of good and evil indicates the fact that God, and
God alone,
is the ultimate judge of good and evil. As the judge of all
things God
creates the good, and rejects evil, and upon that basis all
life depends.
Utterly and finally, Adam, in every aspect of his being, is
dependent upon
God's continued judgment to sustain the good life that God had
given him. As in the first account, the goodness of Eden, as
with any created thing,
has its basis in the social relations of the covenant, in how
it fulfills
God and humanity's purposes as given in the covenant. The
existence of the
second tree, and the fact that Adam can utilize the economic
bounty of Eden
only through relation to God implies that Eden is good only as
long as it
functions within covenant. Apart from covenant, Adam forfeits
his life,
and Eden no longer fulfills its purposes as humanity's home.
To transgress the Word of the Lord means to do good or evil
after one's
own will. But this is something which must not be done
because it is
God who must decide concerning good and evil, commanding
the one and
prohibiting the other, whereas man, choosing after his
own heart,
cannot attain good but will do evil. This, then, is what
God prohibited. This is the possibility indicated by the tree
of knowledge in
the Garden of Eden but also prevented by the commandment.
This is the
possibility whose realisation delivers man to death by
removing him
automatically from the the One with whom is the fountain of
life.(124)
Therefore, Adam's blessedness, his economic well-being, and even
his life,
depend upon his steadily and cheerfully acknowledging the
Creator as the
One who has the sole right to determine Adam's understanding
of how he
should live in all the affairs of his life. So important is
this point
that God's first spoken words to the human race as indicated in
this saga,
Gen. 2: 16-17, is to give Adam permission to eat freely of the
trees, to
receive God's economic bounty, but only on the condition of not
presuming,
upon pain of death, to determine his own right and wrong apart
from reliance upon the Word of God. When Adam ate of the tree
of the knowledge of
good and evil he made the decision to act according to his
own lights.
That is, he presumed to think and live apart from covenant, so
that all his
actions, including those of economic relevance, took place
apart from
covenant. Under these conditions he could no longer enjoy
covenant fellowship with God, and further, he lost Eden and he
lost the active support of
God's grace by which he could sustain his bodily existence.
Economic life
refers to sustaining and enhancing bodily existence. Apart
from God's
grace, Adam lost the power to live physically; his body
returned to dust.
Further evidence of his changed economic circumstances is
indicated in the
fact that his removal from God's presence results in a
drastically altered
economic existence. Inside Eden his life is one of economic
bounty and
refreshing work. Outside Eden the land is cursed, it bears
thorns and
thistles, and only by bitter toil is Adam able to wrestle a
living from it
(3:17-18). The consequence of breaking the covenant was the
breakdown of
economic life, even in its technical aspect. Even outside
Eden, however,
God works with and extends his grace to his creatures.
According to
Barth's exegesis, the angel (3:22-24) which prevents Adam's
return to the
tree of life prevents Adam from avoiding death. Had Adam been
given access
to the tree of life, to God's grace, he would have lived
forever. Yet it
would have been a life of alienation from God, continued
disobedience, loss
of fellowship, continual dying in the midst of life. God averted
this hell
by expelling humanity from Eden and by his verdict of death, with
the hope,
and this is known only Christologically, of the resurrection
from the
dead.(125)
Sin
Adam's changed economic circumstances are a result of sin,
sin understood as disobedience of God's Word. In Barth's view
sin is a violation of
the covenant, not the transgression of a law of nature.(126)
Adam sinned by
violating God's spoken Word, the verbal commandment not to eat of
the tree.
It was not a technical failure on Adam's part that led to
economic hardship, but rather, a social failure, a failure to
remain in fellowship with
God. As a consequence, the technical aspect of economic life
became much
more difficult outside Eden, and eventually impossible, in
that he could
not maintain his bodily existence and he returned to the
dust. This
account does not tell us what sorts of sin lead to Adam's
expulsion, except
that it was a violation of God's Word. In the following
chapter we will
specify concretely what sorts of sin lead to economic
deprivation, but all
of them have their basis in breaking covenant, in the failure to
obey God's
Word and to keep covenant with others. From this perspective,
the deprivations of contemporary economic life, mass-starvation
and human exploitation, have their basis in rebellion against
God and breaking covenant with
one's neighbor.
Finally, the centrality of covenant with respect to
economic life is
readily visible in this second account. Since the second
account is more
transparent to the reality of covenant, we find in Gen. 2:
16-17 the
dependence of economic life upon covenant explicitly expressed
in a succinct form. God tells Adam that he may freely eat,
but only within the
context of the covenant as witnessed by the two trees. By
contrast, the
first account is more concerned with covenant's external basis,
and therefore, the covenant as encounters between God, Israel,
and the surrounding
nations appeared only by virtue of Barth's Christological
exegesis. In
both accounts, however, the existence of Israel (Adam) in the
land (Eden)
is of paramount importance, and reinforces the conclusion that
a central
social fact underlying economic life is who controls the land or
the use of
its resources.
Work
With respect to what we have called the technical aspects
of economic
life, we may note that, as in the first account, the emphasis
in the Eden
story is upon the availability of the land and its products for
food (Gen.
2:16). Other technical economic activities are not mentioned,
with the
exception of one other factor, and that is work. Work is the
technical
activity of converting nature's resources into products for human
consumption, and human beings share this activity with animals
although in a more
complicated form. For human beings, however, work is
associated with the
covenant. In the first account only God worked, and the aim
of his work
was to prepare the external conditions of covenant so that
work was an
aspect of covenant purposes. In the second account, human work
comes into
prominence. From the point of view of the world and people
outside Eden,
God creates workers, vv. 4b-7, and this general truth has its
basis in the
specific event of God placing Adam in Eden, the commission, v.
15, "to till
it and keep it," as prefiguring Israel's entrance into and use of
the land.
We may now investigate several related questions: What makes
work possi
ble? what is the nature of work as a human activity? and how
does work
relate to the covenant?
We may begin by observing that the planting of Eden, v.
8, and the
fact that God places Adam in Eden to till it, v. 15, refer to
Israel's
conquest of the land, and her labor within it.(127) These
events belong to
the history of the covenant, they are social historical events
between God,
Israel, and the foreign nations. These events, in Israel's
view, were
initiated by God's grace, and therefore reveal his desire that
his people
have land and work. The covenant is central, and with respect
to land,
Eden is central. It is through the covenant and its central
place that the
whole is to be known. The fact that the saga is creation
history, that it
refers to the whole world from a particular point of view,
implies that it
is God's purpose that all people everywhere have access to the
land, its
resources, and to work. God makes it possible for people to
work. He, in
modern parlance, provides jobs, and he does so through grace,
historical
events in which nations confront one another with the aim of
securing land
and work. Therefore, we may say that work has its basis in
covenant, in
social history. Before work is possible, jobs must be secured
and maintained, and this occurs through social relations. This
is indicated in the
saga by the statement that "God took the man and put him in the
Garden of
Eden to till it," v. 15. The "taking " and "putting" of this
statement
refer to the Exodus and the conquest of Canaan. And secondly,
we may say
that it is God's purpose that all people have the opportunity to
work. We
may now ask, what is the nature of work?
Barth draws a contrast between the work done outside Eden,
v. 5, and
Adam's work as commissioned by God in v. 15. Within Eden, Adam
is a fruit
gardener. The fact that Eden grows trees, in contrast to the
shrubs and
herbs outside Eden, means that Adam tends the garden and eats of
its fruit
rather than tilling the soil, v. 5. As a fruit gardener
Adam's toil is
actually his recreation, his rest, and satisfaction. The
abundance of the
garden and the productiveness of its trees relieve him of arduous
toil, and
his fellowship with God and confidence in his continued care
relieve him of
all anxiety.
What characterises this place according to the saga is the
higher or
highest vegetation. It is only in and with the later and
true history
of man, outside Eden, when it becomes inaccessible to him,
that the
field will come again into the picture and work on the
field will
really be necessary as on the original view. Here in the
Garden man is
really at rest in respect of nourishment, and his
work--stated in terms
of the first account--is the permitted minimum of the
Sabbath which
does not disturb the freedom, joy, and rest of his
existence.(128)
Or again:
According to v. 5, God created man to "serve" the earth.
This destiny
is not cancelled by his translation into God's Garden, for
only here
can it find its confirmation. The fact that he is brought
here does
not mean that he is translated into a kind of fool's
paradice that
Moslems expect hereafter. He is "given rest," but that does
not mean
that he has not to act. According to the basic view of
the saga,
perfect joy and work are not yet divorced. It is only when
man lives
far from Paradise (3:17) that the ground is cursed, that
it bears
thorns and thistles and is tilled in the sweat of his
face.(129)
Several conclusions follow from these passages. First, the
notion that God
made human beings as workers is confirmed from within the
covenant itself.
Work is of the human essence, and God made it possible for
Adam, and
through him all people, to work. Secondly, although work is of
the human
essence, it is not God's intent that it be a bitter struggle for
existence.
As envisioned by God it does not pit one person, class, or
nation against
others. Work, as part of the human essence, is Adam's joy, his
rest, and
his pleasure. Only through the violation of the covenant,
rebellion
against God and tyranny against neighbor, do the conditions
arise where
people have no access to work, or are forced to work under
conditions that
do not supply their basic human needs. Finally, although the
saga indicates that "perfect joy and work are not yet
divorced," it does not indicate that the purpose of Eden was
to provide a place of luxury or of
leisure. Adam does work, he is not "waited upon" by God or
others, and in
spite of the lushness of Eden's vegetation, he does not live in
luxury. In
Barth's words, "'Yahweh plants a park' (Gunkel). This
interpretation of v.
8 is not incorrect, but it lays too great an emphasis on the
Persian root
underlying paradeisos and is thus misleading, since what
is envisaged in v.
15 is not a place of leisure or luxury but a glorious sphere
of activity."(130)
At this point we may briefly return to a previous issue.
We have
said that economic life is an indispensable precondition for a
vital covenant existence. This is confirmed in the second
account as well which
speaks of land and work as the necessary environment of Adam's
fellowship
with God in Eden. The question arises, is a vital economic
existence a
sufficient condition for a vital social life? Or, once the
workers have
been given land and work, will there then be a new social era
free of
economic and social exploitation? From the point of view of
the Genesis
sagas, the answer is no. Economic life is a necessary but not
sufficient
condition for a blessed social life. According to the first
account, human
social life began on the seventh day in the context of God's
economic
mercy, but this was not sufficient to prevent the breaking of the
covenant.
In the second account, Adam was placed in the Garden, given land
and work,
and he still rebelled against God, broke covenant, and thereby
lost Eden as
well. Historically, these events refer to Israel's capture of
the land and
its bounty, and then the repeated failure to keep covenant with
God. From
this perspective the Marxist vision of a just economic order
does not
guarantee perfected covenant relationships, which in turn
implies the
collapse of a just economic order. On the other hand, vital
covenant
relations are both a necessary and sufficient condition for
a blessed
economic life as economic life depends upon covenant.
With respect to the technical aspects of work, we have
seen that it
is part of the human essence to relate to nature in work, that
this work in
the sphere of creation is the minimum work of the Sabbath, and
that the
provision of work does not guarantee a felicitous social life.
We now turn
to the social aspects of work, work understood in terms of
relations among
peoples. We may ask, how is Adam's work connected to the
covenant, or whom
does he serve through his labor?(131)
Work as Service
According to the Genesis saga, Eden is God's sanctuary.
He plants
it, v. 9, and he waters it. He has given to Adam the task of
its on-going
care. The dominant image here is that of God as a King with
Adam as the
royal gardener.
Its [the garden] decisive determination consists in the fact
that it
was planted by God, and belongs to him, and is thus
assigned to man.
In this sense the well-watered plain of Jordan (Gen. 13:10)
and the
future Zion (Is. 51:3) are compared with it as the
"garden of the
lord," the latter being called the garden of God in Ezek.
28:13 and
31:8.(132)
As the royal gardener Adam serves God by his work; that is
the social
significance of his work. And here we must bring out a point
obscured or
unacknowledged by Barth's exegesis, but one that follows
inevitably both
from his exegesis and the overall meaning of his theology as a
whole. That
God placed Adam in the garden, that the garden belonged to God,
and that
Adam was to care for it, means that a principle manner in
which Adam
related personally to God, in addition to Adam's obedience and
fellowship
represented by the two trees, was by means of his work. Adam
was God's
servant, the meaning of his life was to serve, and the
activity of his
serving was work, in this case agricultural work. Similarly, in
the first
account, God served humanity through his work by establishing
the external
basis of human life. Here, we see the converse, Adam serves
God as his
gardener.(133) Barth comes much closer to understanding work as
service in
his treatment of work in the context of his ethics of
creation.(134) Here he
makes the point that the aim of life is service of God and the
coming of
his Kingdom. The service of God, however, requires the
affirmation of
humanity's physical existence since human beings exist only as
body and
soul in their unity. Bodily life must be maintained, and
work is the
affirmation of human existence as a bodily existence.(135) It
is done in
obedience to God, and is itself a form of service to God and
others.(136)
Furthermore, since persons exist only through encounters with
others, work
has a social nature. This social character is preserved as
human beings
work together to provide for their material welfare, and in
doing so, they
serve one another by enhancing the lives of others through their
labor.
Human work can and should take place in co-existence and
co-operation.
But in reality it does so in isolation and mutual
opposition. It
should provide each of us with our daily bread in peace,
offering us an
opportunity for the development of our particular abilities
and the
corresponding accomplishments, and thus liberating us for
the service
which provides the real meaning of our lives.(137)
The social nature of work is destroyed, and here Barth directly
criticizes
capitalist economic life, when competition becomes the ruling
force of
economic relations, or when labor is reduced to a purely
economic relation
determined by cash paid for services rendered.(138) It is not at
all obvious
to Barth, however, that the transition to socialism will solve
this problem. In his view the exploitation may simply take a
different form, namely
"that of a state socialism which is in fact directed by a
ruling and
benefit-deriving group."(139) By contrast, both Genesis
accounts indicate
the social nature of work as expressing one's love for another.
In the
first account, God served the human race by building a world for
them, and
by providing a table for them in the midst of that world. In
the second
account, God worked for Adam, he planted and watered, (v. 8
and 10), and
Adam responds by tending the garden. In fellowship with God,
under the
guidance of God's determination of right and wrong, Adam is
intended gladly
and humbly to join himself to God's enterprise and do God's work,
a labor
that leads to Adam's own well-being. Work then is ultimately a
personal
relationship, it begins with a decision to serve oneself and/or
others, it
is maintained through personal relationships with others, and
its goal is
to serve human life. This implies that work is not neutral in
itself, nor
is it in the first instance a relationship with the
environment. Work
relates to others, it meets others' needs, and it is done in
response to
the need or command of others, whether commanded by force or
persuasion.
The relevant question is, who serves whom by working, who is
the lord and
who is the servant, what person, nation, or class, serves
other persons,
nations, and classes. One element of our empirical discussion in
the final
chapter will be to address this question. At that time we
will view
commerce as streams of products originating in the earth and
transformed by
work into products of human consumption. Those whose work
contributes to
the formation of these products work for those who use the
products. In
this way, commercial relations are an aspect of covenant
relations, since
objects and relations to them as in work occur in the context
of social
historical relations and indeed express those relations.
Eve
We have now essentially concluded our study of Barth's
exegesis of
the two creation accounts. With respect to the second creation
account,
Barth continues with a third and final section, his exegesis of
Gen. 2:18-
25. Gen. 2:18-25 is the story of Eve's creation from Adam's
rib. We will
not present the results of Barth's exegesis at this point.
Barth introduces a number of new ideas, many of them revolving
around the relationship
between the sexes as the fundamental inter-personal relation.
We have
already discussed this matter, in so far as it relates to our
study, in our
comments on Barth's exegesis of the sixth day of the first
account.
Barth's exegesis of both accounts emphasizes that covenant is the
consummation and goal of creation. According to Barth the
second saga reaches its
climax and conclusion with the creation of Eve and Adam's cry,
"This at
last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; she shall be
called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man."(140) With that cry the
reality of covenant as the goal of creation is confirmed. It
is noteworthy that Adam did
not find the required human fellowship in his work, in his
relationship to
nature or to the animals. Only with the creation of Eve,
and Adam's
recognition of her, was the covenant actualized in the human
sphere. Furthermore, the distinction between creation and
covenant is maintained; a
fresh new creative act of God is required before the capacity for
personal
relationships between people characteristic of the covenant can
be realized
within creation history. The relationship to nature, or the
forms of
production necessitated by work, did not give birth to Eve.
Social relations are not the consequence of the mode of
production, just as covenant
is not the result of the human relationship to creation. When
Adam slept,
God acted in a fresh creative event, bringing forth something
new that was
not inherent as an emergent possibility within the
previously created
world.
This sleep, moreover, means that he knew as little about
the event as
he knew about his own creation and the creation of earth
and heaven.
The question is still one of the pure emergence of the
creature, which
as such cannot be an object of its own observation and
perception. We
are still in the history of creation, which as such can only
be a saga
of creation.(141)
That covenant is however the climax and goal of creation
means, on the
other hand, that there is a positive relation between covenant
and creation. They are not autonomous realms, but integrally
related, and in that
respect covenant relations give the shape of economic life and
not vice-versa.
We will now summarize our results from this chapter as
follows. Our
results pertain to the relation between covenant and creation.
Since Barth
discusses political life under covenant and economic life under
creation,
everything we can say about creation and covenant apply to
economic and
political life as a special case within the more general
framework.
Finally, in determining these relationships we must remember that
these are
not general relations that hold in all times and places. These
relations
occur only in the event of grace. Their basis is the triune
God and
analogies of Trinity occur only through the event of the Word.
We are not,
in other words, proposing a general theory. Nevertheless, if
our conclusions reflect God's revelation as understood by Barth,
then, in the event
of grace, these relations will hold and will call for action
according to
their norms. As we proceed we will locate each proposition in
the inner-
triune life of God. Barth's theology is, however, based in
Scripture. It
is not deducible from a set of propositions having their
basis in the
triune God. Therefore, we shall understand each proposition as
partially
based in prior propositions originally derived from God's
inner-triune
nature. Each proposition has its basis in Scripture, and each in
turn says
something about God's inner-triune nature since Barth moves from
below to
above as well as vice-versa. Barth's logic is organic rather
than deductive from above.
Final Propositions from Chapter Two
2.1 Economic life refers to those activities pertaining to the
creating,
sustaining, or renewal of bodily existence. It is composed of
two related
aspects, relations to nature, the provision of food and shelter,
and relations among persons, nations, or classes in reference
to economic activities. The former we have called the technical
aspect of economic life, the
latter the covenant, social, or political aspect. The technical
and social
aspects are distinct from each other but intimately related.
This distinction and relatedness has its partial basis in (1.5).
2.2 The triune God took responsibility for economic life, and he
did so in
a triune manner by relating creation and covenant, economic
with social
affairs. Furthermore, as seen in the second account, he called
humanity to
act responsibly as well. Responsible economic life for Adam
meant economic
affairs directed by the covenant relationship to God. This
proposition has
its partial basis in (1.4), (1.5), and (1.9).
2.3 Economic life, including its technical aspects, has its
basis in covenant, in social history or political life. The
technical aspects of economic life express, and are initiated and
maintained by, directed toward, and
transformed by the social history of the covenant. This
follows from the
fact that covenant is the inner basis of creation. The
ultimate significance of economic objects or relations to them
(work), is how they function
in social/historical relationships. Something is good only with
respect to
its goodness as determined by covenant or social relations.
This proposition has its partial basis in (1.2), (1.4), (1.7),
and (1.8).
2.4 Since economic life depends upon the social history of the
covenant,
it is a dynamic, decisive, social activity, in which God and
his people
provide for humanity's material welfare. The norms for
economic life are
given by Word and Spirit. Economic affairs are not ultimately
ruled by
economic or historical laws apart from grace. This
proposition has its
partial basis in (1.4) and (2.3).
2.5 The technical aspect of economic life is an indispensable
prerequisite
for human existence, including political and social life.
This follows
from the fact that creation is the external basis of covenant. A
bountiful
economic existence is a necessary but not sufficient condition
for social
well being. An inadequate economic existence will lead to
ruptured political and social relationships. Therefore, since
economic life depends upon
social life, a primary social task is to establish a vital
economic order
as the indispensable external basis of the social order
itself. This
proposition has its partial basis in (1.4), (1.6), and (2.3).
2.6 Covenant vitality, or social and political well-being,
imply a vital
economic life, but not conversely. The breaking of the
covenant leads to
economic loss; hence a primary social task is the process of
determining
what sorts of personal relations can best serve economic life.
This proposition has its partial basis in (2.3).
2.7 Creation is pure benefit though threatened by chaos. This
threat will
be abolished in the final age. Economic life does not, by
nature, entail
human suffering and deprivation. Economic suffering is the
result of sin,
sin understood as the breaking of the covenant and not the
transgression of
a law of nature. The external blessedness of the Sabbath rest
or Eden are
normal economic conditions. These conditions will be restored in
the final
eschatological age. Jesus Christ renews the earth by restoring
the covenant which is the basis of technical economic activities.
This proposition
has its partial basis in the inner-triune fact that God loves
(1.2) and
(1.3), and therefore creation expresses his love as benefit
(1.4), (1.2),
and (2.3).
2.8 Human beings are essentially social and historical, they
exist through
events of encounter between persons. The image of the triune
God is community, persons in their events of encounter, and not
the individual apart
from others. This proposition has its partial basis in (1.4),
(1.7), and
(1.8).
2.9 Bodily being is an integral part of the human essence, and
therefore
economic life is essential to the development of personhood.
This proposition has its partial basis in (1.4) and (1.6) in that
the bodily aspect is
appropriated to creation, the soulish to covenant, and no
mode exists
without the others and hence body and soul are together.(142)
2.10 It is of the human essence to work. Productive work
requires God's
blessing and breath, and by his blessing work is joy, the
minimum of the
Sabbath rest. It requires covenant, and in the human sphere
it requires
social and political events of encounter among peoples. This
proposition
has its partial basis in (1.4), (1.6), (2.3), and (2.5).
2.11 Work is a relationship to nature, and more fundamentally,
it is also
a covenant relation. It is an aspect of how one serves another,
of how one
loves or disregards others. The flow of nature's products as
channeled and
formed by work reveals how various social classes or persons
relate to one
another through the relation of workers and servers, consumers
and served.
Furthermore, God's original intent is that all people be given
work, and
that work be the minimum of the sabbath, his joy and recreation,
in fellowship with God and others. This proposition has its
partial basis in (2.3)
and (2.7).
2.12 God's intention is that the whole of humanity possess the
earth and
eat of its produce. By nature, the earth does not belong to a
specific
class or nation, and God's economic commands are directed to
the whole of
humanity. The division into spheres of economic interests
and warring
classes is a result of the fall. Nor is violence or killing a
part of
economic existence. This proposition has its partial basis in
(2.1) and
(2.7). Creation is distinctive (2.1) with respect to covenant
in that sin
occurs only in the context of covenant (2.7).
2.13 From a Barthian perspective, the technical aspects of
economic activity can tell us nothing of the political aspect,
or how we are to treat
one another as we use the world's resources to meet bodily needs.
This is
found in the covenant, and will be attended to in the following
chapter.
This proposition has its partial basis in (1.2) and (1.4).
2.14 With respect to the technical aspect of economic activity,
the interest of Genesis is the fruitfulness of the earth, work,
and the consumption
of the earth's fruitfulness. Other technical economic
activities are not
mentioned. Therefore, we will base our empirical analysis on
the flow of
products as transformed by work. This proposition has its
partial basis in
(2.4) and (2.5).(143)
2.15 With respect to the social relations that undergird
economic life,
the control of the land and its resources as socially
determined is a
crucial social and economic consideration. This proposition has
its partial basis in (2.3) and (2.5).
2.16 The tendency of Barth's thought is to emphasize national
over class
differences, common language over common economic lot, although
this is not
an absolute determination. This proposition has its partial
basis in
(2.3).
2.17 The Word of grace and empirical knowledge are related
and distinguished as are the Father and Son, or creation and
covenant. The Word of
grace integrates empirical knowledge to itself as its periphery,
and this
one Word comprising both elements becomes the binding Word of
God. This
proposition has its partial basis in (1.1), (1.4), and (1.6).
Footnotes to Chapter Two
1. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:1, p. 49. Barth
follows the first article of the creed in appropriating creation
to the doctrine of God the Father. See points (a) and (b), pp.
11-15 of III:1.
2. Ibid., p. 50. 3. Ibid., p. 97.
4. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:3, first half, pp.
142-3, 147, 149-50.
5. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:1. p. 48. 6.
Ibid., p. 47.
7. Ibid., pp. 43-44, 47, 95-96, 143, 156, 177-8, 207,
230-32, 251. We shall also verify this in detail as we proceed,
8. Ibid., pp. 28-34, 51-56. 9. Ibid., p. 76.
10. Ibid., excursi pp. 63-65, 233-34. See pp. 59-72
passim on other aspects of the continuity. Since Barth
distinguishes between histories, he can separate the history of
creation from that of on-going history. Creation, for Barth, is
pre-history, it occurs prior to the history of the covenant. It
provides the external basis for covenant, and it does not evolve.
God does not continue to create the old order, but preserves,
accompanies, and rules it as the external basis of covenant,
(Church Dogmatics, III:3, pp. 68, and note titles of the
first three parts of section 49, pp. 58-154). By contrast,
Segundo does not distinguish between a history of creation and
that of subsequent history. There is one history, and an element
of its evolutionary advance is the extraordinary progress that
has taken place in what we have called the technical aspects of
economic life. These technical developments, in Segundo's view,
give us the technical capacity to construct a more healthful,
humane, economic existence. (The Community Called Church,
pp. 118-120; Our Idea of God, p. 44; Evolution and
Guilt, p. 11.) From Barth's perspective, we may note two
things. First, evolutionary advance within general history does
not merge into a capacity to hear the Word of God apart from
grace. (This follows from the nature of grace, but with respect
to an evolutionary view, note, Church Dogmatics, III:2,
pp. 82-84.) And secondly, we shall show that economic vitality
depends upon grace, upon hearing the God's Word. According to
Barth's exegesis, creation is wholly good; as created, it
provides for humanity's economic welfare (Eden) and does not wait
for future technical developments to insure its bounty. Rather,
economic suffering is the result of sin, the refusal to hear the
Word of God and respond to it. Therefore, the technical aspect
of economic life is not as decisive for Barth as it is for
Segundo.
11. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:1, p. 43.
12. Ibid., p. 74. For the discussion on creation time,
the time of the covenant, and fallen time, see pp. 72-76. Also
comments 211, 276.
13. Ibid., III:1, pp. 14-15. We established this in the
first chapter in the discussion on the eternal generation of the
Son.
14. Ibid., pp. 76-92.
15. Barth, Church Dogmatics, I:1, p. 413; III:1,
pp. 16, 78; III:2, pp. 152-157; III:3, p. 73.
16. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:1, p. 79.
17. Ibid., excursus pp. 87-90.
18. The covenant or political aspects of economic life are
known only Christologically, the technical aspects are known
through natural knowledge, and the relation between the two is
given through a Christological understanding of God and
humanity's economic relation to creation. To date, the
discussion of Barth's socialism has yet to make sense of the fact
that Barth discusses economic life in the context of creation,
and therefore economic life contains a natural element. Our
approach is a novel one.
19. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:1, p. 3. The
primary conclusion of Barth's initial section on creation, pp.
3-41, is that creation can be understood only
Christologically.
20. Ibid., pp. 64-65, also 92-94. 21. Ibid., p. 44.
22. Ibid., pp. 23-24.
23. Ibid., the sections "Creation as Benefit," pp.
330-334, and "Creation as Justification," pp. 366-415. Note
also comments, Church Dogmatics, III:3, pp. 38-41.
24. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:1, p. 38.
25. Ibid., pp. 41-42. See the excursus pp. 39-41, where
Barth presents the biblical evidence for the goodness of God the
Creator's being revealed in Jesus Christ.
26. Here we find a decisive difference between Barth and
Segundo. According to Segundo, creation advances by means of
higher synthesis, but these higher levels of complexity
culminating in love are opposed by a counterforce which is itself
a constituent element of creation. This counterforce is entropy,
the inclination toward simplicity and minimum effort. Entropy
has its basis in the fact that the supply of energy is fixed; its
distribution may vary, but not its quantity. Higher syntheses
require higher concentrations of energy, and this implies low
energy simplicity and routine at lower thresholds. Therefore,
routine and simplicity must exist in order for more complex
syntheses to occur at higher levels. This occurs at the social
level in that human life requires pyramids of lower-level
routines culminating in the complex structures that characterize
social life. (Evolution and Guilt, pp. 17-20, 22-25,
35-39, 69-73, 84.) Furthermore, Segundo visualizes entropy as a
power. He calls it concupiscence or sin, and it is an
involuntary structure that is inherited, both at the personal and
social level. At the social level it leads to indifference,
exploitation, and cruelty. Furthermore, each level sums up all
prior levels, and realities at any one level exist analogously at
lower levels. Consequently, sin or concupiscence exists
analogously as the structure of existence at levels below the
strictly personal and social level (25-27, 69-73; see pp. 51-60
on sin's social character, and comments pp. 107-110). From this
point of view, chaos and sin belong to the natural order. They
are necessary as the simplicity and routine which dialectically
impede and allow higher syntheses. "The process itself is
significant. The historical process is one, and it is directed
by Yahweh himself toward the fulfillment of his promises. Within
this process evil does not proceed from another God nor does it
belie Yahweh's benevolence. It is a necessary part of the
process, and hence it merits epithets that take due account of
its ambiguous--or better--dialectical role: the same process is
due to Yahweh and Satan." (p. 71.) Barth, of course, will have
none of this. Although the power of chaos hangs over creation,
it is not an essential ingredient of creation. Barth is able to
make this statement since he distinguishes creation history from
general history. General history is history subject to the power
of chaos, and Segundo's analysis is a description of general
history conceived in evolutionary terms. Segundo's view allows
the possibility of justifying economic misery as belonging to the
nature of things. Economic suffering could be understood as the
degradation and lack of technical complexity that must exist on
certain levels in order for higher economic levels to occur as
more complex syntheses.
27. We shall present the evidence for this shortly.
28. See Barth's discussion, Church Dogmatics, III:1,
pp. 56-59.
29. Barth, IV:3, first half, pp. 38-164. 30. Ibid., pp.
136-165.
31. Ibid., p. 147. See also, III:2, pp. 12-13,
23-25.
32. Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV:3, first half, pp.
143-50.
33. Ibid., pp. 137-163. 34. Ibid., p. 156. 35. Ibid.,
p. 157.
36. Barth reaches similar conclusions in the context of his
anthropology under heading of his doctrine of creation. There he
asserts that certain results of the natural or anthropological
sciences can give what he calls "symptoms" of the true human
nature, once that nature is first known by grace, that is, in
Jesus Christ. See Church Dogmatics, III:2, the comment
the bottom of page 74, and the discussion beginning p. 75. See
also concluding comments, pp. 121-2, after Barth has discussed
several anthropological alternatives.
37. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:1, p. 98.
38. Ibid., excursus, pp. 102-110, and particulary the
conclusions on p. 108.
39. Ibid., p. 110. 40. Ibid., pp. 112-13.
41. Ibid., p. 115. See comments pp. 114-5. 42. Ibid.,
p. 120.
43. Ibid., p. 121. 44. Ibid., p. 120. 45. Ibid., p.
122.
46. Ibid., p. 122. 47. Ibid., pp. 121-3. 48. Ibid.,
pp. 121, 129.
49. Ibid., pp. 129-133. 50. Ibid., p. 136. 51. Ibid.,
p. 139.
52. Ibid., p. 141. 53. Ibid., p. 140. 54. Ibid., p.
144.
55. Ibid., pp. 144-49 for the discussion that follows.
56. Ibid., p. 149. 57. Ibid., p. 146. 58. Ibid., p.
147.
59. Ibid., p. 148. 60. Ibid., p. 149.
61. Ibid., pp. 149-56, for the following discussion.
62. Ibid., p. 150. 63. Ibid., p. 144. 64. Ibid., p.
143.
65. Ibid., pp. 152-3. 66. Ibid., p. 155. 67. Ibid.,
151.
68. Ibid., pp. 152-6. 69. Ibid., p. 156.
70. Ibid., excursus pp. 159-68. 71. Ibid., pp.
163-4.
72. Ibid., pp. 169-71, and the excursus, pp. 171-76, for
Barth's discussion of the fifth day.
73. Ibid., pp. 171-72.
74. An article by Verne Fletcher gives an excellent summary
of Barth's doctrine of co-humanity as it appears in his doctrine
of creation and in his Christology. Fletcher relates Barth's
concept of co-humanity to the search for human community, and
concludes that Barth's concept "is obviously incompatible both
with a social theory which asserts the primacy of autonomous
individuality and, on the other hand, with a theory which holds
that the primary reality is Society, the State or a particular
collectivity." (Verne Fletcher, "Barth's Concept of Co-Humanity
and the Search for Human Community," South East Asia Journal
of Theology 9 [April, 1968: pp. 36-48], p. 50.) Fletcher
understands Barth's co-humanity to imply, and here he quotes
Barth, a rejection of state coercion (Marxism), as well as
capitalist individualism (p. 51). Apart from grace, the matter
of the individual versus the society cannot be resolved.
75. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:1, pp. 191-2.
Barth's belief that the "let us" refers to Trinity follows
ultimately from his Christological presupposition that the Old
Testament revelation is secretly in itself the beginning of the
revelation in Jesus Christ in which God is revealed as triune.
According to Barth's exegesis, if the "Let us" referred to an
angelic entourage of created beings, then according to verse
twenty-seven, humanity would be created in the image of God and
this entourage. As it stands, the verses indicate that humanity
is created only in God's image, and not in the image of other
beings. Further, according to verse twenty-six, there is in God
a plurality.
76. Ibid., pp. 183-7 and the excursus pp. 191-206, for
this point and the material which follows. In this excursus
Barth examines alternate views of the image of God, pp. 192-6.
He presents his own view, pp. 196-8, and then presents
corroborating ideas from both the Old and New Testaments,
198-205. Anthropology is the theme of Church Dogmatics,
III:2, and in that volume, part 2 of section 45 (pp. 222-284),
Barth deals with humanity in its basic form as beings in
encounter. See, for example, comments, pp. 226-8, 243-50. See
also, Karl Barth, Against the Stream, edited by Ronald
Gregor Smith, (London: SCM Press, 1954), especially point two,
pp. 187-188.
77. Barth, Church Dogmatics, section 46 of III:2,
pp. 285-324, describes the male/female relation as the
fundamental human form of being in encounter, pp. 288-293, and
this in turn reflects Yahweh's covenant with Israel, pp. 297-9,
and Jesus' relation with the church, pp. 300-324.
78. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:1, pp. 188-91.
79. Ibid., pp. 190-91, 201-205. This is readily apparent
from the order of Church Dogmatics, III:2. Barth begins
with a section 43, in which he discusses the basis of
anthropology and concludes that it must be built on Christology,
pp. 41-54. The remaining sections of this volume, sections
44-47, all begin with Christological portions. See index, pp.
xiii.
80. A number of commentators have noted that Barth's
conception of the social nature of God leads to a social
conception of human life. Dannemann, for example, relates
Barth's understanding of God's social nature to the social
character of human life, both in the sphere of creation and of
covenant. (Ulrich Dannemann, Theologie und Politik im Denken
Karl Barths, [Munchen: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1977], pp.
136-9.) Our results affirm these conclusions with the caveat that
the word "social" is defined by God's act and not by general
conceptions of social life. This raises the question as to
whether Barth's theology supports socialism as a political
alternative. The thesis has been proposed that Barth did not
affirm socialism as a general theory of social progress, but that
his theology does lead to an affirmation of socialism on
pragmatic or practical grounds. (Marquardt, p. 15; Hunsinger,
Radical Politics, p. 8. Andreas Lindt concludes that
Barth's theology leads to an affirmation of socialism, not as
holy doctrine, nor as a doctrinaire program, but the best
practical alternative at the given moment. Andreas Lindt, "Karl
Barth und Der Sozialismus." Reformatio 24 [July-August:
394-404], p. 404. Barth himself, at one point, indicated a
preference for socialism. Karl Barth, The Church and the
War, translated by Antonia H. Freendt, (New York: The
MacMillan Co., 1944), p. 39.) In our fifth chapter we shall
present an empirical analysis of one aspect of contemporary
economic history, and in light of that analysis assess the
practical significance of Barth's theology. The fact that God is
social within himself, and that economic life has its basis in
social history, will lead us to make use of a socialist analysis
of economic life in contrast to a capitalist one, and to argue
for forms of acting responsibly in economic affairs that have
greater affinity with socialism rather than capitalism. We will
not reach those conclusions, however, because we believe that
Barth's theology affirms socialism. We shall show that Barth
resolutely refused to directly link the Kingdom of God with any
social program. Barth's theology is a theology of the Word. The
Word does not proclaim the practical validity of socialism as a
general truth. Depending upon the Word, one may affirm socialism
in a given context, but never on general grounds as either a
practical or theoretically valid goal. Our position does not
deny that Barth was a socialist. But if, at a given moment, he
affirmed socialism on practical grounds, it could only be because
he felt directed by the Word toward a practical affirmation of
socialism, rather than because socialism was a practical goal of
his theology. This assumes that his actions were consistent with
his theology.
81. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:1, p. 186.
82. See Barth's discussion on "Near and Distant Neighbors",
Church Dogmatics, III:4, pp. 285-323. Barth raises the
question as to what factors are relevant for hearing the Word of
God in one's concrete circumstances in life. He begins with a
common language and location, and shared history, and these give
rise to national differences. He notes that these differences
are significant for shaping human life, but he will not allow any
of these to limit the Word of God. National boundaries are fluid
with respect to this Word, p. 300. In Church Dogmatics,
IV:4, The Christian Life, pp. 219-224, Barth places
political and economic absolutisms as the first and second of the
Lordless Powers, thereby recognizing both political and economic
factors as powerful determinants of human behavior. Karl Barth,
The Christian Life, (Church Dogmatics Vol. IV,
Part 4, Lecture Fragments), trans. Geoffrey Bromiley (Grand
Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company,
1981.)
83. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:4, p. 294.
84. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:1, p. 207. See
discussion pp. 205-208 for comments on God's initial
commands.
85. Violence, in Segundo's view, is an essential element of
the order of things. The evolutionary advance does not increase
the available supply of energy, but only its distribution, so
that preferences for certain complexes imply losses of energy in
other areas. These other areas will have violence done to them
as they are ignored or subjected to deadening routine.
(Evolution and Guilt, pp. 17-20, 22-25, 116-8; The
Liberation of Theology, pp. 157-162.) By way of example,
Segundo points out that Jesus did violence to some in order to
have the time and energy to attend to others. (Our Idea of
God, p. 169; The Liberation of Theology, pp.
162-65.) The crucial question is, who benefits from the limited
supply of energy, and what other classes and orders are subjected
to violence in the process? Segundo chooses for the poor and
oppressed, and this implies a degree of violence against their
oppressors. For Barth, violence is not inevitable. As we shall
see in chapter three, aspects of Barth's theology indicate a
preference for the poor, but this does not of necessity entail
violence against the upper classes, since the Word of God is not
limited in its "supply of energy." But that does not imply that
the Word cannot call people to violent action. Barth's view of
violence is close to that of Bonino, who notes that Scripture
advocates violence in certain contexts, and not in others, and
this depending upon "God's announcement-commandment, as concrete
acts which must be carried out or avoided in view of a result, or
a relation, of a project indicated by the
announcement-commandment." (Doing Theology in a Revolutionary
Situation, p. 117.) With respect to Barth, we shall address
the matter in chapter four, and conclude in chapter five that the
failure to provide an adequate economic existence is grounds for
violence.
86. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:1, pp. 211-2. 87.
Ibid., p. 213.
88. Ibid., pp. 213-9, and the excursus pp. 219-228, for
Barth's treatment of the seventh day.
89. Ibid., p. 217. 90. Ibid., pp. 223-5, and especially
224.
91. Ibid., p. 228. 92. Ibid., p. 229. 93. Ibid., p.
234.
94. Ibid., p. 250. 95. Ibid., p. 232.
96. Ibid., pp. 234-9, and the excursus pp 239-49, for
Barth's discussion of Gen. 2:4b-7.
97. Ibid., p. 244. 98. Ibid. 99. Ibid., p. 235.
100. Ibid., p. 237. 101. Ibid., p. 235. 102. Ibid.,
p. 239.
103. Ibid., pp. 235-8, 242-7, for Barth's discussion of
Adam's being created from the ground.
104. Ibid., p. 236. 105. Ibid., p. 237.
106. Ibid., p. 243, and statements, Church
Dogmatics, III:2 , pp. 325, 389-90. Bonino calls the
denigration of the body and of work, and its expression in
idealistic philosophy and theology, the "idealist inversion." He
suggests this inversion both originated in and fortified certain
social and economic conditions: "Is it purely fortuitous that
this idealist interpretation should have been developed by Greek
philosophers living in an aristocracy of idleness in which manual
work was confined to slaves?" (Doing Theology in a
Revolutionary Situation, p. 110.)
In a similar vein, Barth observes
that the church has consistently overvalued the soul, and ignored
the body and thereby "shown a culpable indifference towards the
problem of matter, of bodily life, and therefore of contemporary
economics." When has it not, in Barth words, "stood on the side
of the ruling classes." (Church Dogmatics, III:2, p.
389.) The thrust of Barth's criticism at this point is directed
toward the church and its theology, and to do this he makes use
of a number of Marxist ideas. Marquardt quotes these ideas as
well, but describes them as judgment on Barth's part against
bourgeois society, rather than a judgment against the church (p.
315). This is not an accurate reading of Barth on Marquardt's
part, and he does not continue on with Barth's discussion of
Marxism. Barth describes Marxism as living on in "that soulless
figure of a man," as a "violation of history," and that its
material emphasis on human nature is an "error," and "a curse
lying on this matter" which will one day avenge itself, and "take
on more and more of the spirit, or lack of spirit, of that robot
man." (Church Dogmatics, III:2, p. 389.) Barth does not
castigate Marxism for this failing, but judges the church whose
ethereal notions lead to the outbreak of a materialistic creed
such as Marxism. Barth makes similar remarks in another context
in response to suggestions that Marxism represents the
anti-christ. Rather than focusing on the evils of Marxism he
turns to the church. "Has the church appreciated the fact that
the materialism of Marxism contains something of the message of
the resurrection of the flesh. I would be able to start from
there. The fatal mistake of Christianity is that it has
identified itself with the conservative classes: the church and
army, the upper classes, the aristocracy and the monarchy." [Karl
Barth, Der Gotze wackelt, (Berlin, Kathe Vogt Verlag,
1961), pp. 120-1.] Barth's theology is a theology for the
church. He was concerned for society, but through his efforts in
the church and not conversely. Barth wrote a church dogmatics,
not a political dogmatics; his first emphasis was theology, not
political science. He uses Marxism at this point is to call the
church to repentance. We shall, following Barth, direct
ourselves to the church. We shall offer suggestions to the
church, suggestions which counter its tendency to "stand on the
side of the ruling classes." See the comments by James Bentley on
Barth's use of Marx in Church Dogmatics, III:2. James
Bentley, "Karl Barth as a Christian Socialist." Theology
76 (July 1973: 349-56.), p. 352-3. Especially see the excellent
article by Shelly Baranowski in which she reviews Barth's
political involvement and reaches the conclusion that the
"conceptual priority of theology is the foundation upon which one
understands the uniqueness of Barth's approach to politics. The
primacy of theology is apparent in both Barth's use of socialism
and in the intersection of Barth's background with his political
environment." Shelly Baranowski, "The Primacy of Theology: Karl
Barth and Socialism," Studies in Religion, 10, (1981, pp.
451-461), p. 454.
107. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:2, p. 328.
108. This is discussed by Barth in Church Dogmatics,
III:1, pp. 203-436. For Barth's rejection of trichotomism, see
Church Dogmatics, III:1, p. 249; III:2, pp. 354-355.
According to Charles West, Barth recognized that the church had
done injustice to the bodily aspects of the Christian faith, and
would be in no position to counter the Marxist criticism of
religion until she had rectified this failing. In West's words:
"So long as the Church does not revise her doctrine of man from
the point of view of this eschatological hope; so long as
she does not learn that God's promise is given to men in both
body and soul, a total blessing and hope; so long as she hides in
a body-soul dualism instead of confronting the world with the
message of the kingdom of God, she will face the Communists
helpless because of her own bad conscience." (Communism and
the Theologians, [Philadelphia: The Westminister Press,
1958], pp. 214-5.) Part of our objective is to overcome this
defect.
109. For this section see Barth, Church Dogmatics,
III:1, pp. 249-276, and the excursus pp. 277-288.
110. Ibid., p. 277. 111. Ibid., p. 249. 112. Ibid.,
p. 255.
113. Ibid., pp. 267-268. 114. Ibid., p. 274. 115.
Ibid.
116. Ibid., p. 276.
117. Ibid. The Christological basis of creation is also
described by Barth as creation's justification, section 42 part
3, pp. 366-414. This justification consists of the fact that
God took form in Jesus Christ to redeem creation, p. 385.
118. Ibid., p. 280. 119. Ibid., p. 278.
120. Ibid., pp. 256-7, 269-70, 281-4, for Barth's
discussion of the tree of life.
121. Ibid., p. 257. 122. Ibid., p. 282.
123. Ibid., pp. 257-266, 269-70, 284-88, for Barth's
discussion of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
124. Ibid., p. 287.
125. Ibid., pp. 257, 282-4, for Barth's comments on Adam's
expulsion.
126. Since sin is a violation of the covenant, Barth
locates his discussion of sin in the volume on reconciliation,
Church Dogmatics, IV. He gives his reasons for doing so
in IV:1, pp. 138-45, 359-413, IV:2, pp. 378-403, and IV:3,
first half, pp. 368-434. Barth understands sin strictly in
terms of covenant. Segundo understands sin from a social point
of view, and also as a characteristic of the evolutionary
advance. Sin, in his view, is the power of entropy, mass action,
and simplicity. This occurs in the social realm, and it also
occurs in a more attenuated form at lower levels, and this would
include biological life. (For social aspects see, Evolution
and Guilt, pp. 35-39; Grace and the Human Condition,
pp. 37-39; Our Idea of God, p. 16; for lower level
effects see, Evolution and Guilt, pp. 34, 107-110.)
Therefore, the sin and chaos that affects economic life possesses
a certain independence relative to human social life, with the
result that economic misery may result not only from broken
social relations, but also from the lack of sufficient technical
expertise as given in the evolutionary advance. Segundo goes in
that direction when he suggests that recent technical
developments are steps to higher levels of economic life.
(The Community Called Church, pp. 118-120; Our Idea of
God, p. 44.) In the final chapter, we shall present an
economic analysis. At that point we shall recognize that the
developed countries have introduced a number of technical
innovations into underdeveloped economies. Following Barth, we
shall not, however, make these technical advancements a
significant factor for understanding human economic progress or
misery. From a Barthian perspective, creation is wholly good.
There is nothing in creation which awaits further evolutionary
developments in order to secure a sufficient economic life.
Rather, economic deterioration is the result of sin, and even the
technical difficulties of economic life, as witnessed by life
outside Eden, have their basis in the broken covenant. Our key
for understanding economic misery will be broken covenant
relations among peoples. Segundo is a liberation theologian, and
he clearly recognizes the importance of social life for economic
affairs. (The Community Called Church, pp. 118-120.)
Nevertheless, his emphasis allows us to seek some of the causes
of economic suffering in nature, and not strictly in social
relations. His view would give greater credence to technical
solutions, rather than solutions requiring social transformation.
127. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:1, 267-8.
128. Ibid., p. 254. See also, Church Dogmatics,
III:4, pp. 553-4.
129. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:1, p. 278. 130.
Ibid., p. 277.
131. In the context of discussing the triune character of
God in contrast to the God of natural theology, Segundo indicates
the pertinence of this discussion by asking whether "we glimpse
in the products we buy the human countenance of the worker who
produced them?" (Our Idea of God, p. 141.) We have made a
similar correlation between Trinity and labor.
132. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:1, p. 277.
133. This conclusion is obscured in Barth since he does not
clearly indicate that Adam served God in his work, but rather,
Barth observes that Adam's primary task is to serve the land.
See Barth's initial discussion of v. 5 on p. 235 of Church
Dogmatics, III:1, his discussion of the meaning of the word
Adam on 244, his interpretation of v. 15 on pp. 250, 278.
Normally, however, Barth never discusses the relation to nature
apart from covenant relations. Consequently, Adam's work cannot
be divorced from his relation to God as God's servant.
Christologically, as the new Adam, this is seen in Barth's
understanding of Jesus' ministry as one of service. The two
primary moments in Jesus' reconciling work are entitled, "Jesus
Christ, the Lord as Servant" and "Jesus Christ, the Servant as
Lord."
134. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:3, pp.
517-60.
135. According to our study of Church Dogmatics,
III:1, matters of economic relevance are central to Barth's
doctrine of creation. In Church Dogmatics, III:2, Barth
presents his anthropology, and he emphasizes the bodily aspect of
human existence. In III:4, one of Barth's primary themes is
life, and this includes the sustaining of its bodily aspects.
The material on work occurs in the third section on life, and the
purpose of work is to maintain bodily existence. This treatment
is really the only major discussion of economic affairs within
the Church Dogmatics. Therefore, bodily existence is a
primary theme of Barth's doctrine of creation, and we are right
in discussing the technical aspect of economic life in relation
to creation.
136. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:4, pp. 516-527.
In Bonino's view, "there seems to be in the Bible no relation of
man to himself, to his neighbor, or even to God which is not
mediated in terms of man's work." (Doing Theology in a
Revolutionary Situation, p. 109.) In our context, Bonino's
observation is an expression of the fact that no mode exists
without the others (1.6), so that every aspect of social
relations appropriated to the Son requires an external basis in
work appropriated to the Father.
137. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:4, p. 536. Barth
presents five characteristics of work, the third being its social
character, pp. 534-545. Marquardt's discussion of this section
of the Church Dogmatics can be found on pp. 331-2.
138. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:4, pp. 541-3.
139. Ibid., p. 544.
140. Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:1, p. 290-1.
141. Ibid., p. 295. The creation stories are sagas not
only in the sense that no one was there to observe God's creative
acts, but, they are also sagas in that God's fresh acts are not
the actualization of possibilities that creation itself already
possessed, but wholly new events created by God.
142. Barth doesn't make these appropriations in quite this
way.
143. The purpose of this proposition is to eliminate other
economic considerations which frequently ally themselves with a
cosmology--a mathematical or historical view of economic life.
These theories may have a limited validity. Nevertheless, by
(2.4), economic life is ultimately directed by Word and Spirit,
and the Word is not subject to historical or mathematical laws.
The Rev. Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D.
robertsanders@iglide.net
Copyright, 1986
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