Category Archives: Angelology

The 24 Elders, 4 Living Creatures, and Real θεολογία Theology

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After a long small print section of commentary on Revelation 4—5 on angels and heaven vis-à-vis a Heaven-world relation, Karl Barth ends the whole thing with the following passage:

A final observation may be made. At one time θεολογία was thought of as knowledge of the kind of matters which have occupied us here. Rev. 4—5 was thus regarded as a typical specimen, and it was for this reason that the author was called John ὁ Θεολόγος. He would have been most surprised, and the 4 living creatures, the 24 elders and the many angels in heaven, must surely have been surprised, at most of the things which have since been given the name of theology.[1]

Barth wrote this in the mid-20th century; how much more so is his indictment even truer in the 21st century church and churches? Kyrie eleison

[1] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/3 §50–51 [476] The Doctrine of Creation: Study Edition (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 190.

Let Theology Be Theology: On a Doctrine of Angels (and Everything)

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Theological methodology is akin to a biblical hermeneutic. That is, the way we decide to interpret a theological reality, i.e., by what instrumental means, will dictate the way we receive and deploy our sources in an attempt to rightly divide the Word which is truth. Much, if not most, of the so-called Great Tradition of the Latin church, has engaged in the practice of speculation, as they couch that in the authority of the magisterial Catholic or Protestant churches. This is more understandable with the Catholic side of this equation, but less so with the Protestant. I.e., Given the fact that the Protestant side portends the so-called ‘Scripture-Principle’ as the formal means by which they ostensibly arrive at their biblical-theological conclusions. And yet in the Protestant history of interpretation what the student often finds is that they too, just as much as the Catholics, have imbibed various speculative means to fill in the “gaps” of the Scriptural communique. That is to note, that they, often like say, the Angelic Doctor, Thomas Aquinas, or Dionysius the Areopagite, have appealed to neo-Platonic categories of thought, of the chain-of-being logical-causal universe, to think various doctrines.

For our purposes, in the remainder of this writing, I want to focus our attention on the way that Karl Barth offers critique of the above speculative hermeneutic. In this instance, Barth is dealing with the development of a doctrine of angels. He has already surveyed, extensively, the history of interpretation on this matter, starting with Dionysius and moving all the way through to someone no less than Ernst Troelscht. In each case, as Barth demonstrates, while some offering more promising categories for thinking a doctrine of angels than the other, what is the same for all involved is that they each deploy said philosophical and speculative categories to fill in the gaps where Scripture is silent on the nature and order of the angels. In contrast, Barth is indeed, thoroughly committed to the Protestant Scripture-Principle; particularly when it comes to doctrines like the angels, where little can indeed be surmised by way of speculation or philosophical machination. Barth wants to simply stay within the parameters that Scripture alone attests to in regard to the angels. He writes:

5. We have only to add that if we keep to the rule stated and emphasised in 3 and 4 we need not be anxious concerning the knowledge required in 2, whether in respect of the possibility or the correctness and importance of a theological knowledge of the reality of angels. Theology only has to be theology at this point too. It has only to be on its guard against unwittingly becoming philosophy. It has only to accept the discipline of being wholly and exclusively theology. It has only to refrain from seeking rationes probabiles [probable arguments], from also trying to be a little philosophy, whether on hermeneutical or apologetic grounds. If it does this, it cannot be lacking in a concrete objectivity of theme. And in some degree, and in a way which is basically worthy, it will do justice to it. And the theme itself will be sufficiently important to claim it seriously and profitably. Holy Scripture gives us quite enough to think of regarding angels. And it is something positive. We have only to consider what it says in its distinctiveness, and to try to assess it without pre-judgment. Nor does it do so in such a way that we can quickly leave the problem on the pretext that it is merely peripheral. If we wholeheartedly accept angels in the position and role assigned to them in the Bible, in their own place and the way they make themselves so important that we can no longer ignore them when we consider the centre and substance of the biblical message. Again, the Bible is not so obscure in respect of angels that we cannot responsibly draw out certain notions and concepts which are quite adequate for a Christian understanding. All that is required is a firm resolve that the Bible should be allowed both to speak for itself in this matter, i.e., in the course of its message, as a witness of what it understands by the revelation and work of God, and also to be very impressively, and in its own way very eloquently, silent.[1]

The above is the desire of the Protestant thinker de jure. Often what happens though, because certain philosophical abstractions vis-à-vis doctrines, become so conflated and accreted over time, is that the people (the raza), even the pastors themselves, cannot critically disentangle the imposing philosophy from the Scriptural teaching itself. This happens most unironically to those who are ostensibly some of the most blunt and vociferous about “their biblicism.” Typically, when confronted with the fact that their doctrine of angels is based not actually on the biblical categories, but the Platonic (or some other) ones, they recoil in a reactionary emote and look at such an idea as the antichrist itself.

Stay genuinely biblical my friends.

[1] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/3 §50–51 [393] The Doctrine of Creation: Study Edition (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 122–3.

Discoursing Our Way to an Angelology; Philosophy V the Bible; Thomas V Barth

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Barth attempts to offer a Biblical Angelology. In the process he surveys some of the most primary developments on an angelology, in the history, as those were offered by Dionysius and Thomas Aquinas. Just on that level his treatment is interesting and rewarding. But in the midst of that, since he is slavishly beholden to the Protestant ‘Scripture Principle,’ he also identifies what I also take to be primary to a truly Christian presentation on the angels. As is typical, especially with reference to my own interests, Barth rightly recognizes the role that a prolegomena/hermeneutic will end up having on how a respective thinker will arrive at their veritable conclusion on what in fact angels (and demons) are. This a priori commitment to whatever hermeneutic someone deploys in their attempt to understand the supraphysical verities in God’s world, will in the end determine whether or not said thinker actually has a point of contact with God’s world or not.

In the following passage the reader will observe how Barth believes a philosophical/speculative attempt at developing a doctrine of the angels, as is present in Aquinas’ guiding habit, ends up providing something highly interesting and imaginative to contemplate; but beyond that, for Barth, this speculation only generates a notion of ‘angelness’ that only can get as high as the virtuoso’s genius. That is, Barth believes, for example, in Thomas’ attempt to prove the existence of angels, that insofar that he stays correspondent within his self-referencing universe, that Thomas does indeed offer something on “the angels” that entails a coherence. But that’s what makes it something of interest to Barth, rather than something of substance (pun intended).

It cannot be contested that in a specific sphere and on a specific assumption proof is here given of the existence of a specific object interesting to the one who conducts the proof. It might be asked whether this sphere is real, and if so accessible, and if so able to be marked off in this way and approached with this assumption. It might be asked whether the proof furnished on this assumption and in this sphere is really conclusive and convincing either in detail or as a whole. But if we assume that everything is in order in this respect, and that Thomas has legitimately proved what he really could prove, there can be no doubt that with this assumption (or with the criticism or partial or total rejection of his demonstration) we are merely making philosophical and not theological decisions. Whether there are intellectual substances without bodies, and whether their existence can be proved in this or some other way, may be a question which is interesting and important in the sphere of philosophy. It may be one which can be discussed and even decided in this sphere. It may even be one which is decisive. But it is purely philosophical. On the basis of the Word of God attested in Holy Scripture we are not asked whether there are or are not substances of this kind, nor are we required to prove their existence in some way. If there are, and if their existence can be proved, this does not lead us to angels in the biblical sense of the term. And if there are not, and their existence cannot be proved, this is no argument against angels in the Christian sense. What are called angels in the Bible are not even envisaged in Thomas’ proof of the existence of these substantiae separatae [distinct substances], let alone is anything said for or against their existence, or anything meaningful states about them at all, with the eight proofs. And what Thomas later constructed upon the demonstrated existence of these substantiae separatae is very different from a doctrine of angels in the Christian sense of the term. In his demonstration Thomas has given us philosophy and not theology, and he has done so far more exclusively than Dionysius. He does so occasionally refer to Holy Scripture, and therefore it may be asked whether he does not incidentally and in some sense contrary to his own intention make some contribution to theological knowledge. But fundamentally and as a whole he simply offers us a classical example of how not to proceed in this matter.[1]

In nuce, if the Christian is going to attempt to offer a genuinely Christian doctrine of angels, they will, as Barth so rightly presses, be committed to the biblical categories rather than the philosophical ones. And of course, it is this methodology that funds the whole of Barth’s style of a confessional trinitarian-dialectical christologically conditioned way of doing theology from the reality of the Bible. The Christian philosophers among us would sneer at this; the classical theologians, the ‘Great Traditioners’ in our midst, would mock; how ironic.

Stay Biblical my friends.

[1] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/3 §50–51 [393] The Doctrine of Creation: Study Edition (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 104.