Does Barth’s conception of God fall prey to what theologians (and philosophers) call modal collapse, as some claim? Bruce McCormack, of Princeton Theological Seminary, in his contribution to the Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, entitled Grace and being: the role of God’s gracious election in Karl Barth’s theological ontology, he opened up a reading of Barth that people like George Hunsinger and Paul Molnar claim produces a modal collapse in God’s being. In other words, crudely, McCormack’s reading of Barth ostensibly makes God’s choice to be for us in Christ (election) contingent upon the pro nobis (for us); the contention is that for God to be God, in the way Hunsinger et al critique McCormack, is that God has chosen to not be God without the resurrected humanity that obtains as the result of the Son’s election to be human. Molnar claims (and argues) that McCormack’s understanding of Barth makes Barth’s God a God who no longer can distinguish between His inner-processions (immanent), and His outer-missions (economy); thus, for Molnar, McCormack’s (and Ben Myer’s following BLM) constructive reading of Barth ends up giving us a God who does indeed modally collapse (i.e. a God who necessarily makes His being contingent upon and predicated by the creation).

But I’m not necessarily persuaded that McCormack’s Barth must fall into a modal collapse. I realize that Hunsinger and Molnar will both be aware of the passage I am going to share from Barth directly (at the very least, they’ve read it). But as I read the following, it is something like this that McCormack could appeal to, and He does in His own way. It is the way Barth himself, as Hunsinger might call it, the ‘textual Barth,’ who explains how God’s election to be human in the Son could be so intrinsic to God’s being as God, and yet not become captive to the charge of ‘modal collapse.’ Here is the man, Barth:

Our emphasis in defining the concept must not in any circumstances fall upon this negative aspect. To be sure, this negative side is extremely significant not only for God’s relation to the world, but also for His being in itself. We cannot possibly grasp and expound the idea of divine creation and providence, nor even the ideas of divine omnipotence, omnipresence and eternity, without constantly referring to this negative aspect of His freedom. But we shall be able to do so properly only when we do so against the background of our realisation that God’s freedom constitutes the essential positive quality, not only of His action towards what is outside of Himself, but also of His own inner being. The biblical witness to God sees His transcendence of all that is distinct from Himself, not only in the distinction as such, which is supremely and decisively characterised as His freedom from all conditioning by that which is distinct from Himself, but furthermore and supremely in the fact that without sacrificing His distinction and freedom, but in the exercise of them, He enters into and faithfully maintains communion with this reality other than Himself in His activity as Creator, Reconciler and Redeemer. According to the biblical testimony, God has the prerogative to be free without being limited by His freedom from external conditioning, free also with regard to His freedom, free not to surrender Himself to it, but to use it to give Himself to this communion and to practise this faithfulness in it, in this way being really free, free in Himself. God must not only be unconditioned but, in the absoluteness in which He sets up this fellowship, He can and will also be conditioned. He who can and does do this is the God of Holy Scripture, the triune God known to us in His revelation. This ability, proved and manifested to us in His action, constitutes His freedom.[1]

It is the emboldened part that is most pertinent to our discussion on modal collapse. We see how Barth, even before he comes to his reformulation of election in CD II/2, has already developed a doctrine of divine freedom (and aseity, which is a related category, of which I have a dope quote from Barth on just a few pages later from the above; we will visit that in another post) which can allow for Barth’s God to be so with us, and yet remain distinct from us as the a se and triune God who He is in His inner life.

We see, in the above passage from Barth, also his various motifs of actualism and objectivism. It is important to bear in mind that Barth’s theology attempts to only think from God’s Self revelation in Christ; in case you didn’t known that already. As such, Barth is going to refer to ‘biblical testimony’ and the ‘acts’ of God quite frequently in the way he theologizes. He will not refer to philosophical apparatus in order to develop something like his doctrine of divine freedom or aseity, even if the philosophical tradition has a parallel grammar in these instances.

In conclusion, for the moment, I think McCormack actually does have a way out, in regard to the way that he thinks God’s being in the theology of Karl Barth. I don’t think even McCormack’s Barth must fall prey to the critique of modal collapse, precisely because of the material Barth himself supplies in the above quote. It is actually hard to see, as we read such conceptual matter from Barth, how people would conclude that McCormack’s Barth, of necessity, must militate against Barth the man. What should stand out most, in this regard, is that McCormack is right to emphasize divine freedom as the basis through which he can read Barth’s doctrine of God through a heavy lens of God’s being-in-election.

Next time we will visit a passage from Barth that is related to this one, as I mentioned. It is a magnificent passage where Barth describes God’s aseity; it is the sort of passage that reminds me why I like doing theology; a passage that makes me want to get lost in the inner life of God, and worship all the days of my weary life.

[1] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics II/1 §28 The Doctrine of God: Study Edition (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 47 [emphasis mine].