On the heels of my last post, I thought I would provide a bit more in regards to explicating what it means to be “more like Barth” inΒ our approach to biblical exegesis. In order to do that I thought I would quote David Gibson a bit futher on how Barth’s so called principial-intensive (meaning intentionally starting with Christ and Barth’s unique understanding of election-incarnation at the center of his method) approach looks like. Here we go:
A good example can be found in the way Barth approachesΒ Romans 9–11. When his thesis of biblical text as witness to revelation is read in conjunction with his understanding of Jesus Christ as the object of that witness, and with his understanding of Jesus Christ as therefore the electing God and the elected man, then a particular set of theological lenses for reading Romans 9–11 come into view. Barth’s approach is well stated by Douglas Sharp:
[Barth’s] exegesis [of Rom. 9–11] presupposes the identity of revelation/incarnation and election, and can be seen to consist in the interpretation of an objective reality (Israel and the Church) which he finds imaged in the text. The truly significant element of the exegesis isΒ the fact that it is not so much the intepretation of biblical revelation as it is an interpretation of a medium which is itself an interpretation of revelation. This is to say that the exegesis of Romans 9–11 is an interpretation of an interpretation. Jesus ChristΒ is the revelation, and Barth views the existence of the community as an interpretation of that revelation. Thus Barth interprets the community in its two forms in terms of the primary reality of Jesus Christ’s election.
This argument corresponds with what we discovered in reading Barth’s exegesis of Romans 9–11. The two forms of the community, Israel and the church, were read by Barth as witnesses to the two-fold determination of Jesus Christ for both judgment and mercy; here Christology intensively occupies the horizon of interpretation. We may recall how different this is to Calvin’s approach. Calvin’s covenant hermeneutic for Romans 9–11 (arguably the most salient feature of his exegesis) is influenced by Christology. But his hermeneutic is not christologically intensive, because he does not see Christology as the meaning of certain verses where Christ himself is not mentioned or as providing the typological structures for Israel and the church within the details of the text.
It is now clear that Barth’s reading of the Bible displays a heremeneutical paradigm that is created not just by Barth’s doctrine of election as it has emerged out of his reading of the Johannine Prologue, but just as closely by a tightly related set of well developed and consistently applied hermeneutical convictions that have operated at least as far back as CD I/2. As Barth comes to provide extended exegesis of biblical texts as part of his doctrine of election, his understanding of interpretive freedom and responsibility ensures that his exegesis of election willΒ be carried out in a manner that may be described as intensively christocentric. This is because his account of the required subordination of the biblical interpreter to the witness of revelation is itself intensively christocentric. [David Gibson, Reading The Decree: Exegesis, Election, and Christology in Calvin and Barth, (London: T&T Clark, A Continuum imprint, 2009), 190-91]
So we can see how Barth’s approach is truly and “intensively” christocentric because Barth assumes that the point of Scripture is to witness and testify to its reality; and thus its witness bearing points beyond itself to its reality who is God’s self-Revelation and self-interpreting-Word, Jesus. It is this assumption that gives shape to Barth’s exegesis; so while Barth’s approach may not reflect typical grammatical-historical exegesis (although as Gibson notes later this is still an aspect of Barth’s approach within his explicatio, yet this takes on different emphases as Barth’s theory of Revelation shifts even this consideration from epistemological/revelational concerns per Calvin’s more classic approach to soteriological/meditational contours), he still moves and breathes within that sphere; albeit given shape by a theological vantage point, that then informs his particular method of reading the whole text and history of salvation.
There is really a lot more to this, but I wonder if those of you who said they would be more like Barth; if you would still be comfortable in saying that after reading this? I am. T. F. Torrance follows a similar path here, in fact Adam Nigh, contributor to our forthcoming book, has an excellent chapter entitled:Β Chapter 3, Β The Depth Dimension of Scripture: A Prolegomenon to Evangelical Calvinism, where he develops a “depth” hermeneutic something similar to Barth’s, yet sketched with greater detail provided by T. F. Torrance’s thought in particular; and then of course modified as an “Evangelical Calvinist” approach to hermeneutics (just another reason to pick up our book once it comes out, Adam does an awesome job with this topic [his PhD is also dealing with TFT and Scripture/hermeneutics]). Anyway, this will probably be the last post I put up in relation to Gibson’s book on Barth and Calvin (if you ever have the chance and wherewithal, and money, I would suggest that you give this book a read).
Bobby, this is great. My appreciation for Barth’s approach has just increased immensely. The limitation of the grammatical-historical exegesis is great for telling us what the words mean at that level, but true understanding of it must penetrate deeper into what those words point to and the reason for which God had them recorded in the first place. God’s entire plan was Christ. This helps us understand how the NT writers could take passages from the OT and apply them to Christ when the original hearers would certainly not have understood it that way in many cases.
Thanks for sharing this.
@Jon,
Glad you found this helpful; my carpal tunnel is worth something (kidding I don’t have carpal tunnel π )! And you caught it just as it was freshly published. Yes, I think this is just the way to go in interpreting Scripture. There is depth here that mimics in many ways what I find to be present (albeit not as nuanced) in the Patristics etc. But this definitely places the grammatical-historical on new footing.
Bobby, Webster’s article mentions two books by Torrance specifically on hermeneutics. “The Hermeneutics of John Calvin” and “Divine Meaning: Studies in Patristic Hermeneutics”. Have you read those two?
If so do you think Torrance’s understanding of Calvin’s hermeneutics would agree with both Barth’s understanding and Gibson’s?
Jon, I haven’t read either. I intend to, soon. Adam Nigh has read both of those I believe (he was just working on The Hermeneutics of John Calvin recently); if he peeks in here (hopefully I didn’t scare him off with my Warren/Piper post π ) he would be able to give you a better response to that question in particular. In general, though, knowing what I do of TFT (and his theory of revelation which mimics Barth’s) I would imagine that TFT would press the kind of sacramental reading that he has (“sign” “reality”) upon his reading of Calvin’s hermeneutics as well. But, alas, I don’t know how he goes about that in particular (so I will read that book next from TFT). But Adam’s chapter for our book relies on TFT’s stuff in “Divine Meaning” etc. and definitely coheres with what we have here in Gibson’s portrayal of Barth (in general). Except with TFT (according to Adam) Incarnation and the conjunction that takes place there is really pressed and given a lot space for providing the analogy for an hermeneutical schema (also see TFT’s “The Mediation of Christ” if you haven’t).
I’m just finishing The Hermeneutics of John Calvin now – its a slow slog. I would definitely say Torrance’s view of Scripture follows Barth’s as it being a sacrament, sign or testimony to Christ through which Christ himself speaks making himself known by the Spirit.
Though I haven’t read David Gibson’s book, he is a friend of mine and I know he doesn’t support Barth’s reading. My understanding is that in his book he doesn’t seek to make an explicit endorsement of Calvin’s view over Barth’s or vice versa but merely to demonstrate that Barth’s hermeneutic is quite different than Calvin’s and how that is so. But if you ask him, he’s pretty clear in favoring Calvin’s hermeneutic and not favoring Barth’s.
Regarding Torrance and hermeneutics, Reality and Evangelical Theology is a great book from him on that topic, but earlier in his career he had intended on publishing a three volume history of hermeneutics, a volume each on patristic, medieval/Reformation, and modern hermeneutics respectively. I’ve never heard exactly why that project wasn’t finished but the fruits of it have been published as independent articles in various journals and festschifts. The articles on patristic hermeneutics were collected and published in the mid 90’s as “Divine Meaning”. As for the other stuff, the Hermeneutics of Calvin was published as a monograph supplement to the Scottish Journal of Theology, and essays on the hermeneutics of Thomas Aquinas, John Reuchlin, Erasmus, and Schleiermacher have all been published separately. By and large, the primary questions Torrance is dealing with in all these works really isn’t the relation of Christology to the biblical cannon as a whole (though he does have some great stuff on that, particularly the essay in Theology in Reconstruction “The Place of Christology in Biblical and Dogmatic Theology”) but more generally the relation of language to reality and the way that relation affects biblical hermeneutics.
Thanks Adam, for sharing that. I hope Jon found that helpful π (I did). And that is the sense I get with TFT on this, he doesn’t seem as intentional in trying to read his view of election or something into (or from, per se) the Text (at least as overtly as Barth).
I think Gibson does a good job of being even-handed in his analysis, and overall, it is a really good book (diss.). I’d heard that before about, Gibson; that he favors Calvin’s approach over Barth’s. I’m somewhere in between that, like more Torrance. π
Thanks Adam for your response. Gibson’s statement about Barth, “This is because his account of the required subordination of the biblical interpreter to the witness of revelation is itself intensively christocentric.” seems to be a common theme also in Torrance’s work. Torrance repeatedly talks about how the object of our study, namely God himself as the one who unfolds to us his own nature and makes himself intelligible to us in the revelation that he initiates through his Word, who is of course the living Christ. Also, taking his cue from Polanyi’s philosophy of science it is the inquirer who must stand under the object of study so that the the unfolding of the knowledge of the object is done according to its own nature, and according to its own intelligibility. It seems to me that Torrance starts off first with his epistemological concerns before he develops his hermeneutic.
This statement from Theological Science, reflects, I think his Polanyian influence. “But when we think of the object as the living God who enters into living and personal communion with man through revelation and reconciliation then the place of the human subject in knowledge of God can no longer be excluded from the full content of that knowledge. p. 85
Following an interesting discussion of primitive, dualistic systems of knowledge which rest upon models of visual perception and tend to distort divine revelation into its subjective, personal referents Torrance speaks about the new insights derived from post-Einsteinian scientific understanding.
“This transition from primitive to scientific thinking is one in which we move from mythos to logos, from image to inner logic, from subjectivity to objectivity. Now when we do that, we move away from the old observationalist and phenomenalist approach to the historical Jesus, which inevitably loses him, to a profoundly Christological approach, which transcends cosmological and epistemological dualism alike in an understanding of Jesus Christ as God’s self communication to mankind within the space-time structures, objectivities and intelligibilities of our created existence. Far from being violated by the coming of God himself among us in this way, these structures, objectivities and intelligibilities are in fact, creatively established and confirmed in their human, creaturely and contingent reality as they could not be otherwise. In other words, the sheer humanity of Jesus, far from being a mask or a symbol of a divine reality detached from it, is found to be the constitutive form of God’s self giving to us in indissoluble union with himself, and is maintained as such in its perfect integrity and reality as humanity. In Jesus Christ God has revealed himself and imparted himself to us within the space-time continuum of this world in such a way that is inherently in himself what he is toward us in Jesus and what he is toward us in Jesus he is inherently in himself. Here then, in the homoousion and the hypostatic union, to use the classical terms, there is discerned an indissoluble unity of form and being in the material content of God’s self communication to us in Jesus Christ, which constitutes the ground and the justification for the unity of form and being in a rigorously scientific approach to our understanding of him.”
Transformation and Convergence, pages 252 to 253
Given all this epistemological concern, it only makes sense to me that Torrance’s hermeneutic would be primarily Christological such that all of the witness of Scripture, has to be understood in its Christological perspective.
I don’t yet understand how all this differs from Calvin’s hermeneutic. I did find that book by Torrance in a local library so I can try to pry into it in the next few weeks. Hermeneutics per se is not an area I have done that much reading in and the modern hermeneutical theories are heavily philosophical and difficult.
Hey, man. I was working on Barth for a couple weeks. He was a wildly intriguing and impressive person. When liberals thought him a conservative fundi, and fundi’s thought him a liberal, you know he’s going to be a fun (and very frustrating) ride.
-Tim
Tim,
My first encounter with Barth was reading his chapter on the Way of the Son of God into the far country. It was devotional reading for me. His eloquence and moving description of the heart of God for us and the coming of the Son to take our place was very moving. Only later did I realize the many controversies swirling around him as a theologian.
For me to appropriate the many insights Barth offers without necessarily buying into all his conclusions or assumptions is pretty much how I read all theologians.
If you can get a copy of the Dogmatics try reading a couple sections directly. I still have to borrow from the library, but I think that section I mentioned is in one of the volumes on reconciliation. CD IV.1.
Reading the analysis of those who have studied Barth intensely is necessary to get the big picture, but there is something about reading him directly that is so different than reading about him.
I would still say I am more like Barth than Calvin, but that isn’t to say that I am identical to either.
Craig
@Tim,
Yes, Barth is “fun” indeed! π
@Craig,
That’s sounds like me too. Torrance is a better fit for me, really. Surprise :-).