I like Helmut Thielicke for a variety of reasons. But as read his Theological Ethics what he is making more than clear to me is how I am Reformed and not Lutheran. I used to think I could be persuaded to hold Luther’s Law/Gospel (LG) hermeneutic; in other words, I was somewhat open to it. But over time it has become clear to me that I am not open to it; that I am in fact quite Reformed, and Calvinian even, on this locus classicus. The way someone parses this theological combine will impact, for example, the way the exegete approaches their respective theological development. Further, it will have implications towards the way they interact with other exegetes of import. This is the case when we see Thielicke in discussion, and in critique of Karl Barth. In the following Thielicke is offering a critique of Barth’s theology, in the main, by way of deploying the Lutheran Law/Gospel dialectic. Thielicke’s critique, in the name of Law/Gospel, takes an interesting, almost jolting turn as he deploys LG in a way that leads him to argue that Barth’s theology is largely idealistic; and even more pejoratively: Christomonistic. Let’s pick up with Thielicke,

Barth on Gospel and Law

It is thus understandable that the dissolution of this tension which undergirds our faith should necessarily lead to unhistorical thinking. It is understandable that where a theological system contains—however covertly—certain tendencies toward a lack of historicity, they will press for the removal of this tension, and thereby betray themselves.

This seems to us to be the case in Barth’s theology, where Gospel and Law are regarded as two sides of the same thing. When they are thus viewed as correlatives, the tension between them is eliminated. In the words of Barth’s famous definition, “Thus, we can certainly make the general and comprehensive statement that the Law is nothing else than the necessary form of the Gospel, whose content is grace.” As the form of the Gospel, the Law thus conceals the Gospel. The Law does not stand over against the Gospel as something which accuses and destroys us, before which we cannot stand. On the contrary, when we reach the point of confessing our failure, we are already raised up by that which the Law is really intended to be, namely, the promise that “you shall be” what is demanded. Hence judgment and destruction are no longer total. Carried to its extreme by Barth, this means, “The very fact that God speaks to us, that, under all circumstances, is, in itself grace.” But is this really so? Is it really grace when Adam is asked, “Where are you?” Out of the dreadful judgment, devoid of grace, which falls on Adam, salvation comes through the grace which God wrings from himself, painfully, as demonstrated at Golgotha. But is not the miracle precisely this? And is this not quite different from Barth’s correspondence of form and content in terms of conformity to Law? Otherwise, was not Adam’s hiding a case of blind panic? In other words, cannot God’s speech to man be something terrible, something that plunges us into a hopeless impasse? Who in that case may speak of “grace” without doing violence to God’s judgments, and without taking from grace the very thing which makes it grace, namely, the element of miracle, the inexplicable, that which conforms to no law? Who would dare to call judgment “grace,” and understand God’s speech in every case as grace? “If you were blind, you would have no guilt” (John 9:41); if you were deaf, you would likewise have not guilt. But now that you must in fact see, now that you must in fact hear the Law, you are without excuse and the judgments of God break upon you. What else is this but an indication that when our eyes encounter only night, and our ears only silence, this could be because God is graciously sparing us? How then can we ever describe God’s speech “in itself” as grace? We can do so only if we weaken the antithesis between Law and Gospel, for judgment then loses its dark aspect and whispers that we will have a happy ending.

Such a doctrine of Law and Gospel introduces an abstract monism into theology and makes it into a philosophical world view of grace: “The Word of God [is] . . . properly and ultimately grace: free, sovereign grace, God’s grace, which therefore can also mean being Law, which also means judgment, death, and hell, but grace and nothing else.” Even hell has its place in this philosophy of grace. When will the logical consequences of this monism be drawn, namely, the forthright confession and solemn proclamation of the universal consummation of all things, the ἀποκατάστασις pavntwn?[1]

Thielicke, later in his treatment on Barth, admits that what he is critiquing above is the early Barth, in his more dialectical phase, but then he simply asserts that Barth doesn’t really change in his more mature writings as reflected in the Church Dogmatics. This is a rather strange sleight of hand. Not to mention, the implications that Thielicke strains to draw out of Barth’s theology just aren’t there. Even if we grant the Law/Gospel matrix to guide the way we read all things biblically and theologically (which I don’t), Barth does not fall prey to this sort of monism that Thielicke claims for Barth simpliciter. For example (and this is one of many) here is Barth in his Church Dogmatics describing what he calls elsewhere the Judge/judged complex:

The meaning of the death of Jesus Christ is that there God’s condemning and punishing righteousness broke out, really smiting and piercing human sin, man as sinner, and sinful Israel. It did really fall on the sin of Israel, our sin and us sinners. It did so in such a way that in what happened there (not to Israel, or to us, but to Jesus Christ) the righteousness of God which we have offended was really revealed and satisfied. Yet it did so in such a way that it did not happen to Israel or to us, but for Israel, for us. What was suffered there on Israel’s account and ours, was suffered for Israel and for us. The wrath of God which we had merited, by which we must have been annihilated and would long since have been annihilated, was now in our place borne and suffered as though it had smitten us and yet in such a way that it did not smite us and can no more smite us. The reason why the No Spoken on Good Friday is so terrible, but why there is already concealed in it the Eastertide Yes of God’s righteousness, is that He who on the cross took upon Himself and suffered the wrath of God was no other than God’s own Son, and therefore the eternal God Himself in the unity with human nature which He freely accepted in His transcendent mercy.[2]

How can Thielicke simply assert that the earlier Barth, even if we grant Thielicke’s characterization of the early Barth, is present in the CDd Barth?

The thought occurred to me, as I was reflecting on Thielicke’s critique last night: Law/Gospel for the Lutherans is just as artificial to the text of Scripture as is Federal theology for the orthodox Reformed, as is Dispensationalism for the low-church evangelicals. What Barth (and Torrance following) offer is a genuinely catholic reading of Holy Scripture, and its res in Jesus Christ, insofar as they think from the christological pattern originally grammarized at the ecumenical church Council of Chalcedon. I think this is what has attracted me to Barth (and Torrance) so much. There is an authenticity to his theology, respectively, that goes beyond what seems like the contrived or artificial approaches just mentioned. This doesn’t mean that Barth might not have some sort of artificiality in his own ectypal sort of theological development. But it is to say that, thematically, he starts at the right place (in my humble estimation).

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[1] Helmut Thielicke, Theological Ethics: Volume 1: Foundations, edited by William H. Lazarus(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966), 99-100.

[2] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics II/1 §30 The Doctrine of God: Study Edition (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 145.