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The rhetoric of decadent Barthianism

Wednesday, December 1, 2010 — Adam Kotsko

I am a great admirer of the work of Karl Barth. I engaged with him extensively in my coursework, and one of my exam areas dealt with him (in connection with Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer). I find him to be one of the most consistently creative and surprising theologians in the history of Christianity.

And yet I have often detected certain predictable negative effects that Barth has on his followers. Namely, a certain rhetorical pattern has repeated itself in conversations with Barthians too many times to be a coincidence:

  1. State something that sounds more or less like a familiar Christian doctrine, albeit in more poetic and emphatic form.
  2. Claim that Barth’s articulation of this Christian doctrine differs in a subtle and yet crucial way from the familiar account, such that no standard critiques apply to Barth’s version.
  3. If someone asks for clarification of the difference, do one or both of the following:
    • Claim that explaining the difference would be such a Herculean task that it would be foolish even to begin to attempt such a thing in a conversational setting.
    • Claim that the interlocutor’s presuppositions make it impossible for them to recognize and appreciate Barth’s nuanced wonderfulness.

In short, Barth seems to give some theologians the license to make Christian faith claims while absolving themselves of the duty to answer any critics — or indeed, any questions or requests for explanation.

UPDATE: A Barthian responds! Executive summary: “I know you are, but what am I?”

Posted in Barth, Rhetoric. 40 Comments »

My contribution to the Karl Barth Blog Conference

Tuesday, November 30, 2010 — Adam Kotsko

The annual Karl Barth Blog Conference has been underway for the last few weeks, this time around focusing on putting Barth in dialogue with various figures. Paul Dafydd Jones has written on Barth in dialogue with The Monstrosity of Christ, and I wrote a response (appended to his post). I’ve already written a considerable amount on that book, and so I focused on critiquing Barth more than on Zizek or Milbank.

Thanks to the conference organizers for inviting me to be a part of it.

Posted in Barth, blog posts, Milbank, Zizek. 7 Comments »

“Good theology” and “bad theology”

Thursday, September 9, 2010 — Adam Kotsko

In the hallowed halls of the theology blogosphere, one often reads that a given position “is just bad theology.” The confidence with which this verdict is reached makes me think that there is some clear standard of what counts as “good theology,” and after years of careful fieldwork, I believe I have hammered out the basic rules for writing theology that will be considered “good” by bloggers. The guiding principle is as follows: good theology unashamedly embraces Christian particularity. This principle has the following consequences: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in "the church", Barth, Christian theology. 33 Comments »

Models of Theological Discourse

Tuesday, February 23, 2010 — danbarber

As part of a project I’m currently working on, I’ve been thinking through the various presently-existing models for thinking about theological (or more ambiguously religious) discourse.  Specifically, what I have in mind here are ways in which theological discourse is positioned with regard to philosophy.  There are, as far as I can imagine, four models:

(1) Philosophy as condition of possibility for theology.  Here I have in mind the approaches of figures such as Heidegger (especially in his “Phenomenology and Theology” essay) or Bergson.  Theological or religious discourse is admitted, but only when it is understood that that such discourse is a specific borrowing or deployment of a more fundamental and generic mode of thought that is properly philosophical.

(2) The cultural-linguistic model.  The common assumption, following in a Wittgensteinian vein, would be that there is a basic incommensurability between various cultures and their respective discourses.  Theology, in its particularity, is thus granted a specific autonomy that does not need to pass through more generic conditions of possibility or thinkability.  Exemplars would include Lindbeck, Hauerwas, and Barth (and his followers).

(3) Postmodern Thomism.  Shares with (1) the desire to speak generically—i.e. at the level of the ontological or whatever, but also shares with (2) the desire to make theological discourse primary.  This is accomplished, of course, by claiming that it is only (or it is preeminently) with theology that one finds the proper means of thinking being.  Milbank, of course, is the one who has pursued this project most extensively.

(4) Theology as unthought remainder.  This model is distinctive in its unwillingness to position theological discourse at the level of the generic or the particular (or some combination thereof).  It might be best to say that theology functions as a coefficient that enables a paraphilosophical discourse.  Only by encountering theological discourse more seriously does it become possible for philosophy to fulfill its innovative tasks, which have been hampered by a premature jettisoning or overcoming of such discourse.  While their operations are singular, this model is common to Agamben, Žižek, and Derrida.

What do you think?

Posted in Agamben, Aquinas, Barth, Derrida, Hauerwas, Heidegger, Milbank, philosophy, theology, Zizek. 32 Comments »

The theological critique of Nazism

Sunday, October 25, 2009 — Adam Kotsko

I posted this as a comment to Ben Myers’ latest post, but since it’s somewhat off to the side of the post’s topic, it seemed appropriate to turn it into a fresh post of its own:

I say this as a great admirer of Barth, but I’ve always found the “theological” critique of Nazism to be weirdly disconnected from reality. For instance, Barth’s self-congratulation that the church somehow did the right thing insofar as a small sect of it rejected natural theology in the midst of Nazism strikes me as downright chilling. The test here is that you could take it the opposite direction: for instance, the lack of a viable natural theology produced a disconnect between the gospel and the world, which led to the unlimited rise of technological instrumentality that was then ultimately turned against the human race itself most horrifically in Nazism, etc. Or you could say that the artificial either/or of Christ or nature led necessarily to the embrace of natural “paganism,” etc. Or basically you could make up any “theological” cause you like and congratulate yourself for bravely coming down on the right side of the debate, but that doesn’t make what you’re saying relevant. If anything, wouldn’t it have been more immediately relevant and more obviously connected to Nazism if the church had staked its identity on the opposition to anti-Semitism rather than the somewhat obscure point of natural theology?

Posted in Barth, nature, You make a good point, but aren't you actually completely wrong?. 8 Comments »

On Theological Method

Sunday, May 24, 2009 — danbarber

Recently, at Inhabitatio Dei, the concept of freedom was discussed — the initial move was to oppose proper Augustinian freedom to the more contemporary affirmation of pure freedom of choice.  What’s interesting here, particularly, is that it was noted that there might be an ideological dimension to this opposition. 
 
In the comments, I pressed the question of what a nonideological account might look like — and giving a fastforward description of what happened, after some relatively serious dialogue, it was said (not by me, but by others) that freedom is “about the divine power to call and create a human person”, that “freedom is the translation of human beings into the triune life of God,” that “True freedom is an event which happens as human persons are taken up, transfigured, re-created by God’s radical grace.”  Etc, etc, etc…
 
My question: What is going on here?  To what degree should such strongly “theological” responses to the very problematic concept of freedom be leaned upon?  Is this a Barthian tendency that I just don’t get? 
 
In my mind, such responses exhibit the worst tendencies of transcendence, a kind of eternal trump card that is effectively meaningless, except in order to satisfy one’s capacity to possess answers.

Posted in Barth, Christian theology, infinite regress. 16 Comments »

Nature, grace, and anachronism

Saturday, February 21, 2009 — Adam Kotsko

In the literature on Anselm, I’ve noticed what seems to me to be a real anxiety to make sure that Anselm isn’t “really” trying to get all the way to the necessity of the Incarnation by “pure reason.” The reason this explanation is necessary in the first place is that Anselm certainly appears to be doing that and doesn’t seem to view the attempt as problematic on a methodological level. In doing so, he is following in a proud tradition — for instance, Gregory of Nyssa’s “Great Catechism” is able to get to the Trinity and even to the creation and fall by means of something like the common sense of the Hellenistic world, though he recognizes that the Incarnation is going to be difficult to swallow. His general principle is to use Scripture for those who respect Scripture, and reason for those who accept only reason. Convincing the former is thought to be easier (though the historical record doesn’t seem to bear that out), but there isn’t a sharp division between the two that I can see.

I think that the reason for the anxiety about Anselm’s approach is that people are reading it in terms of Aquinas’s nature/grace distinction — i.e., reason can get you to a certain point (where Aristotle winds up), and then you need revelation, which is not contrary to reason but whose contents couldn’t be predicted using reason alone. The Trinity, for example, is firmly on the “revealed” side of this distinction, yet Gregory and Anselm both appear not to be worried about the fact that their reasoned argument has gone way over the line.

The reason for their lack of concern is probably that that line wasn’t a big concern of theirs, and we don’t need to read them anachronistically as though they knew about the nature/grace problem and were really concerned not to be doing something like “natural theology” because that would be somehow impious. Instead, maybe we should read them as doing what they’re actually doing — that is, assuming that the world described in Christian revelation is actually this very world where we are. If that is the case, then of course reason should be able to recognize the inner necessity of God’s actions in the world, because God is after all acting in this very same world where our reason finds its home.

I have a bunch of things that I want to say here but can’t fully support yet. For instance, I object to Aquinas’s two-tiered system first of all because it’s so inelegant. Another thing: maybe Barth’s polemic against “natural theology” should’ve gone further and also rejected the kind of “revealed theology” that’s defined in opposition to “natural theology.” Etc. I’m aware that there are all kinds of nuances that I’m not capturing here — sorry about that.

Posted in Anselm, Aquinas, Barth, Gregory of Nyssa. 8 Comments »

Christ, History and Apocalyptic released in the U.S.

Friday, October 24, 2008 — Nate Kerr

Christ, History and ApocalypticBack in the summer, I posted an announcement regarding my forthcoming book, Christ, History and Apocalyptic: The Politics of Christian Mission.   I am pleased to announce that the book has now been released in the United States through Cascade Books, in their Theopolitical Visions series. Ben Myers has graciously posted an excerpt from chapter 5 of the book entitled “John Howard Yoder: The Singularity of Jesus and the Apocalypticization of History” on his Faith and Theology blog. Should you wish to have the book ordered for your own personal or institutional libraries, U.S. readers can now purchase the book at a web discount from the publisher here.   Outside of the U.S. the book will be released at the end of this month by SCM Press as part of its Veritas series, and can currently be ordered at a discount here.

Here are the endorsements for the book as provided by Stanley Hauerwas, Graham Ward, and Nicholas M. Healy:

“A rare gift—a critic from whom you learn. Though I do not agree with all of his criticisms of my work, Kerr—drawing imaginatively and creatively on the work of Troeltsch and Barth—has rightly framed the questions central to my and Yoder’s project. We are in his debt for having done so. In this book, Kerr not only establishes himself as one of the most able readers of my and Yoder’s work, but he is clearly a theologian in his own right. We will have much to learn from in the future.”
—Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics, Duke Divinity School, Durham, North Carolina

“This is a timely book that traverses twentieth century theology to develop a distinctive understanding of church engagement with the world. Finely executed and acutely discerning, it opens up an ecclesiology that is neither culturally accommodating nor counter-cultural. Conceiving the church as fundamentally dispossessive and missionary, Kerr announces a genuinely apocalyptic Christian politics. This is excellent theology for the up and coming generation.”
—Graham Ward, Head of the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures, University of Manchester

“This is a really exciting book: engaging, provocative, and—above all—constructive. Kerr seeks to reaffirm the Christian claim that Jesus Christ is the Lord of history in the face of modernity’s attempts to subsume Christ into our history. In spite of the complexity of its material, this fascinating book is so remarkably clear throughout that I found it hard to put down. It should not be ignored.”
-Nicholas M. Healy, Professor of Theology and Religious Studies and Associate Dean, St. John’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, St. John’s University, Queens, New York

For those interested, I am also reposting the book description and table of contents in hiding.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Barth, Hauerwas, mission, politics, publications, Shameless Promotion, Troeltsch, Yoder. 12 Comments »

Barth on the Attributes of God

Monday, February 4, 2008 — Adam Kotsko

With my post-Agamben eyes, and more recently in light of Anthony’s suggestion at the AAR that “God” should be aligned with the “never-living,” I took particular note of the places in Barth’s (rather laborious) exposition of the attributes of God where he talks about God’s life. In the section on God’s constancy, the main move that Barth makes to distance his concept of God from the traditional notion of impassibility is to understand God’s constancy as his life. We can’t think of God’s impassibility as a lack of movement, since that would mean that God is dead. He also wraps up the section on God’s eternity by saying that we must understand God’s life as eternal, to keep us from veering back into an abstract concept of eternity, etc. (I haven’t read the “glory” section yet — the end of the eternity section is what prompted this post.)

My question: Why not treat God’s “life” as a separate attribute?

Posted in Barth, dogmatics, vitalism. 16 Comments »

Althusser on Barth

Saturday, July 28, 2007 — Adam Kotsko

In “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” Althusser refers to “Feuerbach and the theologico-philosophical school which descends from him, e.g., the theologian Barth” (Lenin and Philosophy, 163). Is this brilliantly insightful, ill-informed, or both?

Posted in Althusser, Barth. 5 Comments »