I have been over at Brian LePort’s blog Near Emmaus engaging with him on questions about Jesus, sin, free will and the like. Since I don’t have the proper time to devote to this, I provided some quotes from TF Torrance and Karl Barth that I have posted in the past here at the blog. Brian asked for further clarification on what Barth meant about ‘human freedom’ in this quote:
[T]he perfection of God’s giving of himself to man in the person of Jesus Christ consists in the fact that far from merely playing with man, far from merely moving or using him, far from dealing with him as an object, this self giving sets man up as a subject, awakens him to genuine individuality and autonomy, frees him, makes him a king, so that in his rule the kingly rule of God himself attains form and revelation. How can there be any possible rivalry here, let alone usurpation? How can there be any conflict between theonomy and autonomy? How can God be jealous or man self assertive? (CD I I/2, p. 179)
Genuine freedom as it is realized in Jesus is not a freedom from God but a freedom for God (and, with that, a freedom for other human beings). ‘ To the creature God determined, therefore, to give an individuality an autonomy, not that these gifts should be possessed outside Him, let alone against Him, but for him and within his kingdom; not in rivalry with his sovereignty but for its confirming and glorifying’ (CD I I/2, p. 178).
Here is how I just tried to answer Brian’s question on Barth:
I think “freedom for God” simply presumes that all things have been opened up toward God through Christ’s choice on behalf of humanity. In other words, to be free means to live from the freedom that God has imbued upon creation; a freedom that only finds register in him. From what I know of Barth, what he is getting at is that genuine human freedom is only actualised through the freedom of becoming where humanities’ raison d’être terminates; viz. in the freedom that God has in his own life. So to have an autonomous human freedom, means to be opened up to what God’s intention for human freedom has always already been; a freedom that participates in the freedom that God has in and for himself, and then for us in the telos (Col 1) of recreation, in Christ. So what it truly means to be human can only be realized in Christ’s humanity for us (for Barth and TFT); and what it means to be truly human, and becoming, is to be opened up to God as participants in his life. I think the binary of this, for Barth (and I know TFT) is not a legitimate category for consideration; and I mean the negative questions that classic free will questions presuppose. Like logical-causal (cause and effect) questions; like ‘if humanity is now opened up to God in Christ, and this signifies an autonomous human freedom; then why don’t all people actualise this freedom by responding to God in faith and belief?’ I don’t think these kinds of metaphysically causal questions are credible questions for either Barth or TFT, because they are the kinds of questions that are imposed upon God, and thus are not the kind demanded from God’s Self-revelation of himself in Christ. So, that’s why I would say that both Barth and TFT’s approach to questions like this are principally Christian; and why other ways of getting at these kinds of questions are classically Christian (the ‘classically’ playing to the force that classical theism [the synthesis of Thomism or Aristotelianism or even Scotism with Christian Theology] has upon the methodology and metaphysics of classically Christian questions). [This is a little more constructive than simply answering how Barth would answer this, but I think it is proximate with the ethos of what Barth might say]
To all you Barth scholars out there; what do you think, do you think that my reply to Brian is adequate, or do you think that I have taken too much constructive license? If anything I did a voice over with Torrance over Barth a bit.
“If anything I did a voice over with Torrance over Barth a bit.”
Yep, but it’s passable.
🙂
No Barth scholar here. But my sense of what I’m getting from EC, if not directly from Torrance, is that in Christ’s self-giving, the individual is freed to be for Christ; however, he is also freed to reject the provision. This is the nature of Christ’s self giving. The classics hem themselves in on the economy of an “ineffectual sacrifice” where the one for whom Christ died is not finally saved: “If He died for all, then all must be saved, or else His blood shed for the reprobate was shed in vain.” I believe they are far too constrained. If Jesus (and so, God) loves every soul enough to exist for, and to incarnate for, and to die for them, to secure a freedom, to be for Him, then He is thrice glorified that He was willing to spend Himself for us all, even if the “payoff” of souls would not be 100%. God is no more ruled by economics than anything else that is not God.
Hi Duane,
My primary intention with this was not to necessarily give an EC account, but to sketch how Barth might construe this. I would say that this is the rub, that Barth would say that ‘human freedom’ is now on footing to be free for God; and that ‘why’ someone rejects this in light of the new footing in Christ really makes no sense. Or as TFT would say, it is a surd.
Of course, the Bible says that this is the case because humanity loves the darkness rather than the light. Or that the god of this age has blinded their minds to the light of the Gospel. Or that the world considers the wisdom of God as foolishness and weakness, etc. Or that the Gospel is the aroma of life to some and death to others. The scriptures (like in Jn 14—16) only give us, ultimately, the positive reason for the why question on ‘why’ folks respond in faith to Christ through Christ. There really isn’t a comment on the LORD’s relation to the ‘why’ on why folks respond negatively to the Gospel; other than what I just mentioned above. But that does not state ‘why’, it just describes the state of the whatness of the condition that unbelieving man is in and remains in unless the repent. So there is an asymmetrical differentiation between election and reprobation in Scripture. This is something that Calvin, for example, was attuned to in his thinking.
You did well! My favorite part was: “a freedom that participates in the freedom that God has in and for himself, and then for us in the telos (Col 1) of recreation, in Christ. So what it truly means to be human can only be realized in Christ’s humanity for us (for Barth and TFT); and what it means to be truly human, and becoming, is to be opened up to God as participants in his life.”
In the end, we cannot be “free from God” in the sense of being a totally separate entity, for in Him, “we live and move and have our being,” whether we rebel or not.
@Jerome,
Thanks. Do you know Barth pretty well?
I can’t say I know Barth very well, Bobby. I am more familiar with his expression through Torrance, his student. In fact, my church denomination, Grace Communion International, is very much into Torrance’s Trinitarian, Christocentric theology. The website has a video section called “You’re Included,” which is an interview series (about 30 minutes per) of Trinitarian, mostly Torrance influenced, theologians. I appreciate learning more, and your blog is very helpful in that.
Hey Jerome,
Cool! I’ve benefited from many of those interviews from GCI in the past. I’m glad some of my humble thoughts on TFT are of some service.
What led GCI to embrace TFT so deeply? Who was the catalyst, as far as leadership in GCI, that turned you all onto TFT?