教义学

Karl Will
Translated by Grover Foley
Some weeks after I had concluded in Basel the writing
and delivering of these lectures-and with them my
academic career-I had the opportunity of shaking the
dust of Basel from my feet and boarding an airplane
which carried me from there in a high arch over Germany, Scotland, Greenland, and the icy wilderness of
Labrador. In but a few hours it brought me, for the first
time, to Chicago, into the very heart of that altogether
different land which Europeans liked earlier to call, not
without justification, “the new world.”
The present work, Evangelical Theology: An Introduction, will now appear in the United States in the
English language. I delivered the first five of these lectures in Chicago and Princeton, and the first one also in
Richmond and San Francisco, using an English manuscript which had been carefully prepared by Grover
Foley (who likewise translated the whole book) and
which was then again and again revised by my son
Markus and myself.
I am happy now to be able to add a few somewhat personal words of remembrance, greetings, and thanks to
the many old and new friends and brothers, both familiar and unfamiliar, whom I met during my stay in
America. I was everywhere received and lodged by them
in pleasant surroundings and with great hospitality,
and they also heard and questioned me with great diligence and attention.
“How do you like that strange place called the United
States?” This is what I was asked by a dusky theological
colleague (not a Roman Catholic this time, but a literally
black colleague) with a subtle smile, soon after my arrival in Chicago. Similar questions about my “impres sions” of America have often been addressed to me by
others (and occasionally even in public). I have always
answered somewhat evasively. Even in Washington,
where I had the opportunity of spending an interesting
evening with a group of younger men who stood near to
the President, I prudently offered only certain questions
and no “statements.” Most certainly, I will not write an
article on “America,” much less a book, for if I know one
thing about America, after having spent seven weeks
in that “strange place” (and then only in ten of its fifty
states) and having opened my eyes and ears as widely
as possible, it is certainly this : that I know all too little
about America to be able to speak competently about it.
In fact, I did have “impressions,” but I could actually
summarize them only with the one word, “fantastic”-a
word which, by the way, plays a remarkable role in one
of Tennessee Williams’ dramas that I saw during my stay
in New York. And I would have to reproduce these impressions in similar language (if I had the spirit and
means of non-objective art at my command). Yes, “fantastic” is the word for all that: the numberless streams,
plains, hills, and mountains between the two oceans,
and the whole landscape over which we flew in all directions or through which we hurried by automobile; the
wilderness of Arizona, the Grand Canyon (where I had
good reasons for refraining from making the descent),
the bay of San Francisco together with the Golden Gate
bridge ; Chicago and New York with their gigantic
buildings, with their incoming and outgoing highways
filled with the continuous gleaming motion of innumerable cars, with their swarms of individuals of all lands,
races, occupations, and endeavors ; the strange unity as
well as contrast of humanity in the East, West, and
South of the continent ; the thorough organization and
standardization (to a certain extent competing with
divine providence) of all life, including that of the Church and even of theological science ; the pertinent,
but also sometimes rather impertinent, curiosity and
descriptive art of the American journalist… ! For me it
was also “fantastic” to see the thousands who streamed
to my lectures and to my public discussions in Chicago
and Princeton, and also to see myself suddenly engulfed
by such an avalanche of “publicity,” to which I was
quite unaccustomed. (“Advertising helps it happen” I
read in great letters on a billboard at the side of an
American highway.)
While in America I experienced a few things which,
although not of primary importance, were very significant to me. My little book of sermons from the Basel
prison, now also translated into English, won me entrance into three great American prisons. There, along
with some quite bad aspects, I saw many hopeful signs,
and I had the very best impressions of the intentions of
the directors and chaplains of these houses. The unforgettable hymnal greetings which I received in these
places from the Church choirs, mostly composed of Negroes, were as powerful as they were impressive ! Chinatown in San Francisco was also unforgettable, as was a
guided stroll through the somewhat ill-famed East Harlem in the northern part of Manhattan Island. But my
unquenchable historical curiosity led me also to visit a
whole series, though by no means all, of the sites of the
American Civil War. I had already long before acquired
from afar a literary interest in its events and personalities. Now informed eagerly and precisely in detail by
older and younger experts, I obtained a vivid and enduring picture of what was done, undone, and, above all, suffered by the blue “Yankees” and the gray “Rebels” under
the leadership of their more or less gifted generals on the
broad fields (nowadays cared for in the main quite appropriately) at Manassas-Bull Run, Fredericksburg,
Chancellorsville, and, above all, Gettysburg, and the sur roundings of Richmond. And it was only natural that I
could not omit devoting, in front of his impressive monument in Washington, a serious “minute of silence” to
Abraham Lincoln, the greatest and, from first to last, the
decisive man in that American period of heroism and
terror. (According to a promise made to me, his complete
works are soon supposed to make this small house of
mine in Basel smaller still and my knowledge of the
American past greater still.)
Parenthetically, how does that old history, now just
a hundred years past, concern me? I could say in reply (once again somewhat evasively) that there was
once another D.D. and professor of systematic theology
whose opinion was that this history eminently concerned him. His name was R. L. Dabney, a professor in
Richmond and later in Austin, Texas who, moreover,
also left behind a work of dogmatics. During the Civil
War, Dabney was not only a chaplain but the chief of
staff of the famous Rebel General Stonewall Jackson,
who in his own right was a strict Presbyterian, a deacon
of the Church of Lexington, Virginia, and a conductor
of Sunday school and prayer hours ! There are really
“more things in heaven and earth…” !
On the other hand, I also had the opportunity of gaining certain special impressions of the American present
in the form of all sorts of human encounters, though I
dare not construct any precise image from them. (Thou
shalt make no image, no abstraction, including none of
the American, the Swiss, the German, etc.!) For hours
or even whole evenings I sat together with businessmen,
actors, Talmud-Jews, journalists, Roman Catholic theologians, and even with a small group of real live Communists. Strangely enough I only once met with a large
group of preachers, but naturally I encountered individual professors and students of a whole series of theological faculties and seminaries. I was with Billy Graham as well as with the conscientious and thoughtful New York attorney William Stringfellow, who
caught my attention more than any other person ; while
unfortunately my relationship to the courageous Negro
pastor Martin Luther King was confined to being photographed together in front of a church door. If, after
all of these encounters, I have anything to regret, it is
that on most such occasions, as the circumstances demanded, I was obliged to speak far too much, while I
would have preferred to ask questions, to listen, and to
learn as much as was allowed by the tempo and the very
different types of English in which I was addressed. I
actually only became silent (apart from the political
evening in Washington) in the presence of two extraordinarily significant women : Mrs. Anna M. Kross,
Commissioner of Correction of New York City, who is
involved in energetic reform of prison conditions there,
and Dr. Anna Hedgeman, the champion of a new and
self-consciously rising American Negro population,
whom I came to know in New York only shortly before
my departure. A third lady, the one immortalized in the
Statue of Liberty in the harbor of New York, seemed
to be pleased enough at my presence but still only
silently waved to me!
One reason why I have somewhat broadly described
all this here is to show the future American readers of
this book that I have had intense pleasure at being in
their land and in their midst. There are no grounds at
all for supposing that I was full of distrust upon coming to them and while lingering among them. That I believe neither in a Soviet heaven on earth, nor in a similar
Swiss or American terrestrial paradise, nor in any “way
of life” constructed by men, is another matter. The only
reason why I had not earlier visited America is that
until now I could not afford any such extensive absence
from my writing desk. Who knows, moreover, whether in retrospect it may not appear better from both the
American point of view and my own that this visit has
only now taken place, and who knows whether everything would have gone so peacefully, pleasantly, and
amicably if I had appeared in the United States fifteen
or perhaps even thirty years ago? Whatever the case
may be, I now have a much more concrete picture than
before of the existence (and the foreground and background of the existence) of American Christians and
their fellow men. These lectures were not written for
them but for my Basel hearers. It may be that, if they
had been written after, instead of before, my trip to
America, one thing or another would have been said and
expressed in a different way. All the same, my American readers for their part may now have gotten to know
me somewhat more concretely ; they may have noticed
that I am neither the “prophet,” the “monumental
patriarch,” nor the “giant of theology,” as which I was
here and there described, and just as little the gloomy
theological gladiator and fire-eater whom many there
may have had before their eyes from the times of my
early commentary on Romans and the angry “No !” to
Brunner. Instead, I may now hope that the author of
this book may have become familiar to many readers,
if not to all, as a normal human being who is considerably involved in all sorts of human affairs, and distinguished from other men only by the simple fact that
he chiefly has devoted his days to a special emphasis on
the question of proper theology and that he would be
happy if others would also devote themselves in all seriousness to this question again and again. This foreword’s little review of those seven weeks may appear to
be a somewhat astonishing resume, but it may serve the
purpose of contributing in a small way to the understanding of the author and the book itself.
As far as I can now see, the five lectures which are to be found at the beginning of this book have, on the
whole, been received in the United States with astonishing courtesy and appreciation. When I arrived and read
the words with which the Christian Century intended to
greet me, I understood something of their dread that one
or another of my hearers might suppose himself all too
easily dispensed from historical criticism and other
achievements of the nineteenth century. When I left I
heard again a question that apparently had gone unanswered : “How shall we make the jump from Moses to
Mozart, from Mesopotamia (!) to East Germany, from
obedience toward Caesar to defiance of Hitler?” Another
question was whether I do not mythologize the Jews of
the present by considering and addressing them as
identical with the people of the Old Testament. And
Christianity Today informed me that the old uneasiness
smoldering in the conservative camp has still not been
extinguished concerning what I have supposedly been
heard to say about the authority of the Bible and the relationship of Geschichte and Historie. I eagerly await
the further echoes: whether these and similar reservations will now be further weakened or still more
strengthened among readers of the rest of the lectures,
and whether certain wrinkles which I could not overlook on the brows of the theological professors and students who questioned me (in spite of all the readiness
with which they listened) will vanish or will grow deeper
and darker. Certainly, much still remains to be clarified
and explained. I only hope that all readers will take my
word that I do not presume to have spoken even humanly
ultimate words in those five lectures and now in these
seventeeen. And by the way, I also understand the
Church Dogmatics (which can now also be read in
America), not as the conclusion, but as the initiation of
a new exchange of views about the question of proper
theology, the established knowledge of God, and the obedient service of God among and for men. I think I
have seen unmistakably that a new discussion of this
question has also been undertaken in America. And I
have even a faint hope that this discussion might one
day be pursued there in a more fruitful manner than
in the waters of European theology, which are at present
somewhat stagnant. What we need on this and the other
side of the Atlantic is not Thomism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, orthodoxy, religionism, existentialism, nor is
it a return to Harnack and Troeltsch (and least of all
is it “Barthianism” !) , but what I somewhat cryptically
called in my little final speech at Chicago a “theology of
freedom” that looks ahead and strives forward. More or
less or something other than that would scarcely be
suitable, either here or there, to the foundation, object,
and content of evangelical theology or to the nearly
apocalyptic seriousness of our time.
KARL BARTH
FROM THE FOREWORD TO THE
GERMAN EDITION
I hope none of those who find the volumes of the Church
Dogmatics too thick will complain about the energetic
brevity with which I express myself here. Since I could
not very well announce “Dogmatics” as a lecture topic
for but one hour each week, I chose to use the opportunity of this swan song for another purpose. I wanted to
render a short account to myself and my contemporaries
of what, up to now, I have basically sought, learned, and represented from among all the paths and detours in
the field of evangelical theology during my five years as
a student, twelve years as a preacher, and subsequent
forty years as a professor. Perhaps I also had the
secondary intention of offering to the present-day
younger generation a survey of an alternative to the
mixophilosophicotheologia (a word coined by Abraham
Calov in days long past !) -to the mixture of philosophy
and theology which, at present, seems to make such a
tremendous impression upon many as the newest thing
under the sun. I did not wish to do this in the form of a
further Credo, an “Outline” of dogmatics or a comparable Summula. So I chose the form of an “introductory” presentation, which in all events had not appeared for some time in the program of study of our
faculty at Basel.
KARL BARTH

1. Commentary3
   I I THE PLACE OF THEOLOGY
2. The Word15
3. The Witnesses26
4. The Community37
5. The Spirit48
   II II THEOLOGICAL EXISTENCE
6. Wonder63
7. Concern74
8. Commitment85
9. Faith96
   III III THE THREAT TO THEOLOGY
10. Solitude109
11. Doubt121
12. Temptation133
13. Hope145
    IV IV THEOLOGICAL WORK
14. Prayer159
15. Study171
16. Service184
17. Love196
    Theology is one among those human undertakings traditionally described as “sciences.” Not only the natural
    sciences are “sciences.” Humanistic sciences also seek
    to apprehend a specific object and its environment in
    the manner directed by the phenomenon itself ; they
    seek to understand it on its own terms and to speak of it
    along with all the implications of its existence. The word
    “theology” seems to signify a special science, a very
    special science, whose task is to apprehend, understand,
    and speak of “God.”
    But many things can be meant by the word “God.”
    For this reason, there are many kinds of theologies.
    There is no man who does not have his own god or gods
    as the object of his highest desire and trust, or as the
    basis of his deepest loyalty and commitment. There is no
    one who is not to this extent also a theologian. There is,
    moreover, no religion, no philosophy, no world view that
    is not dedicated to some such divinity. Every world view,
    even that disclosed in the Swiss and American national
    anthems, presupposes a divinity interpreted in one way
    or another and worshiped to some degree, whether
    wholeheartedly or superficially. There is no philosophy
    that is not to some extent also theology. Not only does
    this fact apply to philosophers who desire to affirm-or
    who, at least, are ready to admit-that divinity, in a
    positive sense, is the essence of truth and power of
    some kind of highest principle; but the same truth is
    valid even for thinkers denying such a divinity, for
    such a denial would in practice merely consist in transferring an identical dignity and function to another
    object. Such an alternative object might be “nature,”
    creativity, or an unconscious and amorphous will to life. It might also be “reason,” progress, or even a redeeming nothingness into which man would be destined to
    disappear. Even such apparently “godless” ideologies
    are theologies.
    The purpose of these remarks is not to introduce the
    world of these many theologies with their many gods.
    We will not compare them historically or offer critical
    conjectures regarding them. No position will be taken
    on behalf of one against all the others, nor will the
    others be subordinated and related to this one. There is
    no apparent reason why these many theologies should
    have anything essential in common with that which we
    want to discuss under the title “theology”; nor is it
    clear how we could fruitfully set them in relation to our
    task. Among themselves they have one thing in common, something that immediately casts a significant
    light on the gods to which they are dedicated. Each one
    of them considers and represents itself as the best
    theology because, even should it not be the only right
    one, it claims to be still more right than the others.
    From the very beginning, as the fable of the three rings
    suggests, we should beware of participating in this
    competition. In one of his plays the German poet Lessing
    compares the claims of the Jewish, Mohammedan, and
    Christian religions to the claims of three brothers. Each
    one of them had received a precious ring from the hands
    of their dying father. Each claimed to have received
    his father’s one and only precious ring, rather than an
    exact copy of it. The warning contained in this fable is
    obvious, even if we do not choose to follow Lessing’s
    opinion that perhaps the genuine ring was lost and
    nothing else but imitations were left in the brothers’
    hands. The best theology (not to speak of the only right
    one) of the highest, or even the exclusively true and real,
    God would have the following distinction : it would
    prove itself-and in this regard Lessing was altogether right-by the demonstration of the Spirit and of its
    power. However, if it should hail and proclaim itself as
    such, it would by this very fact betray that it certainly
    is not the one true theology.
    For this reason we will dispense with any comparison
    or evaluation that would separate or synthesize various
    theologies. Instead, let this simple pointer suffice : the
    theology to be introduced here is evangelical theology.
    The qualifying attribute “evangelical” recalls both the
    New Testament and at the same time the Reformation
    of the sixteenth century. Therefore, it may be taken as
    a dual affirmation : the theology to be considered here is
    the one which, nourished by the hidden sources of the
    documents of Israel’s history, first achieved unambiguous expression in the writings of the New Testament
    evangelists, apostles, and prophets; it is also, moreover,
    the theology newly discovered and accepted by the
    Reformation of the sixteenth century. The expression
    “evangelical,” however, cannot and should not be intended and understood in a confessional, that is, in a
    denominational and exclusive, sense. This is forbidden
    first of all by the elementary fact that “evangelical”
    refers primarily and decisively to the Bible, which is
    in some way respected by all confessions. Not all socalled “Protestant” theology is evangelical theology ;
    moreover, there is also evangelical theology in the Roman Catholic and Eastern orthodox worlds, as well as
    in the many later variations, including deteriorations,
    of the Reformation departure. What the word “evangelical” will objectively designate is that theology which
    treats of the God of the Gospel. “Evangelical” signifies
    the “catholic,” ecumenical (not to say “conciliar”)
    continuity and unity of this theology. Such theology intends to apprehend, to understand, and to speak of the
    God of the Gospel, in the midst of the variety of all
    other theologies and (without any value-judgment be ing implied) in distinction from them. This is the God
    who reveals himself in the Gospel, who himself speaks
    to men and acts among and upon them. Wherever he becomes the object of human science, both its source and its
    norm, there is evangelical theology.
    Let us now attempt to describe evangelical theology.
    An account of its most important characteristics will
    serve as a prelude to clarify the uniqueness which it derives from its object. Among these characteristics there
    is none that, mutatis mutandis, presupposing the requisite changes, could not and would not have to be the
    characteristic of other sciences as well. Although we will
    not expand upon this observation here, we will indicate
    the extent to which these general characteristics are
    specific characteristics of theological science.
    In the first place, it was not Lessing who originally
    forbade evangelical theology to award itself the prize
    in comparison with other theologies or, what is more, to
    pass itself off in any one of its forms as divine wisdom
    and doctrine. For the very reason that it is devoted to
    the God who proclaims himself in the Gospel, evangelical theology cannot claim for itself that authority which
    belongs to him alone. The God of the Gospel is the God
    who mercifully dedicates and delivers himself to the
    life of all men-including their theologies. Nevertheless,
    he transcends not only the undertakings of all other men
    but also the enterprise of evangelical theologians. He
    is the God who again and again discloses himself anew
    and must be discovered anew, the God over whom
    theology neither has nor receives sovereignty. The separation and distinction of this one true God from all the
    others can only be continually his own deed. This deed
    cannot be reduplicated by any human science, not even
    by a theology which is dedicated explicitly to him alone.
    Even in this basic consideration he is, without doubt,
    a God wholly different from other gods. Other gods do not seem to prohibit their theologies from boasting that
    each one is the most correct or even the only correct
    theology. On the contrary, such gods even seem to urge
    their respective theologians to engage in such boasting. Evangelical theology, on the other hand, no doubt
    can and should base its thought and speech on the decision and deed by which God lets his honor pale all
    other gods; however, it would definitely not think and
    speak about such acts if, by this, it wished to win renown for itself according to the example of other theologies. For better or for worse, it must set forth and
    proceed along its own way, a way which is fundamentally and totally different from that of other theologies.
    All the same, evangelical theology must not lose patience
    when it is viewed and understood in the same categories
    as those others. It must even tolerate being compared
    and seen in relationship to them under the rubric “philosophy of religion” (though let me warn you that, for
    its part, it cannot join in this attempt). It can expect
    justice for itself only by the fact that God justifies it.
    It can give only him and not itself the glory. Evangelical
    theology is modest theology, because it is determined to
    be so by its object, that is, by him who is its subject.
    In the second place, there are three subordinate presuppositions with which evangelical theology works.
    The first is the general event of human existence in its
    insoluble dialectic, which theology sees confronted by
    the self-proclamation of God in the Gospel. Secondly,
    there is the particular faith of those men who not only
    are allowed but are also ready and willing to acknowledge God’s self-proclamation. They know and confess
    for all people and specifically for his chosen witnesses
    that God authenticates himself. Thirdly, there is the
    general and the particular presupposition of reason,
    the capacity for perception, judgment, and language
    common to believers as well as to all men. It is this capacity that makes it technically possible for them to
    participate actively in the theological pursuit of knowledge, an endeavor directed to the God who proclaims
    himself in the Gospel. However, this does not mean that
    theology would be ordered, much less even allowed, to
    choose for its object and theme-in place of God-human existence or faith or man’s spiritual capacity (even
    if this should include a special religious capacity, a “religious a priori”). Such topics-if made dominantwould render homage to theology’s unique theme only
    subsequently and incidentally. They could not avoid also
    arousing the suspicion that “God” might be, after all,
    only a mode of speaking, comparable to the symbolic role
    of the King of England. Theology is well aware that the
    God of the Gospel has a genuine interest in human existence and, in fact, awakens and calls man to faith in him;
    it knows that in this way God claims and arouses man’s
    entire spiritual capacity, more, in fact, than his spiritual
    capacity. But theology is interested in all this because it
    is primarily and comprehensively interested in God himself. The dominant presupposition of its thought and
    speech is God’s own proof of his existence and sovereignty. If theology wished to reverse this relationship,
    and instead of relating man to God, related God to man,
    then it would surrender itself to a new Babylonian
    captivity. It would become the prisoner of some sort of
    anthropology or ontology that is an underlying interpretation of existence, of faith, or of man’s spiritual
    capacity. Evangelical theology is neither compelled nor
    commissioned to embrace such an undertaking. It bides
    its time and confidently lets things take their course,
    whatever the way in which existence, faith, the spiritual
    capacity of man, his selfhood, and self-understanding
    may present themselves in confrontation with the God
    of the Gospel who precedes them all. With respect to
    those subordinate presuppositions, theology is, for all its modesty, in an exemplary way a free science. This
    means it is a science which joyfully respects the mystery
    of the freedom of its object and which, in turn, is again
    and again freed by its object from any dependence on
    subordinate presuppositions.
    In the third place, the object of evangelical theology
    is God in the history of his deeds. In this history he
    makes himself known. But in it he also is who he is. In
    it he has and proves, in a unity which precludes the
    precedence of one over the other, both his existence and
    his essence. The God of the Gospel, therefore, is neither
    a thing, an item, an object like others, nor an idea, a
    principle, a truth, or a sum of truths. God can be called
    the truth only when “truth” is understood in the sense
    of the Greek word aletheia. God’s being, or truth, is the
    event of his self-disclosure, his radiance as the Lord of
    all lords, the hallowing of his name, the coming of his
    kingdom, the fulfillment of his will in all his work. The
    sum of the truths about God is to be found in a sequence
    of events, even in all the events of his being glorious in
    his work. These events, although they are distinct from
    one another, must not be bracketed and considered in
    isolation.
    Let it be noted that evangelical theology should
    neither repeat, re-enact, nor anticipate the history in
    which God is what he is. Theology cannot make out of
    this history a work of its own to be set in motion by
    itself. Theology must, of course, give an account of this
    history by presenting and discussing human perceptions, concepts, and formulations of human language.
    But it does this appropriately only when it follows the
    living God in those unfolding historical events in which
    he is God. Therefore, in its perception, meditation, and
    discussion, theology must have the character of a living
    procession. Evangelical theology would forfeit its object,
    it would belie and negate itself, if it wished to view, to understand, and to describe any one moment of the
    divine procession in “splendid isolation” from others.
    Instead, theology must describe the dynamic interrelationships which make this procession comparable to a
    bird in flight, in contrast to a caged bird. Theology
    would forfeit its object if it should cease to recount the
    “mighty works of God,” if it should transfer its interest
    instead to the examination of a material God or merely
    godly matters. Regardless of what the gods of other theologies may do, the God of the Gospel rejects any connection with a theology that has become paralyzed and
    static. Evangelical theology can only exist and remain in
    vigorous motion when its eyes are fixed on the God of the
    Gospel. Again and again it must distinguish between
    what God made happen and will make happen, between
    the old and the new, without despising the one or fearing the other. It must clearly discern the yesterday,
    today, and tomorrow of its own presence and action,
    without losing sight of the unity. It is just from this
    point of view that evangelical theology is an eminently
    critical science, for it is continually exposed to judgment and never relieved of the crisis in which it is
    placed by its object, or, rather to say, by its living
    subject.
    In the fourth place, the God of the Gospel is no lonely
    God, self-sufficient and self-contained. He is no “absolute” God (in the original sense of absolute, i.e., being
    detached from everything that is not himself). To be
    sure, he has no equal beside himself, since an equal
    would no doubt limit, influence, and determine him. On
    the other hand, he is not imprisoned by his own majesty,
    as though he were bound to be no more than the personal
    (or impersonal) “wholly other.” By definition, the God
    of Schleiermacher cannot show mercy. The God of the
    Gospel can and does. Just as his oneness consists in the
    unity of his life as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so in relation to the reality distinct from him he is free de
    jure and de facto to be the God of man. He exists neither
    next to man nor merely above him, but rather with him, by
    him and, most important of all, for him. He is man’s God
    not only as Lord but also as father, brother, friend; and
    this relationship implies neither a diminution nor in
    any way a denial, but, instead, a confirmation and display
    of his divine essence itself. “I dwell in the high and holy
    place, and also with him who is of a contrite and humble
    spirit, …” (Isaiah 57:15.) This he does in the history
    of his deeds. A God who confronted man simply as
    exalted, distant, and strange, that is, a divinity without
    humanity, could only be the God of a dysangelion, of a
    “bad news” instead of the “good news.” He would be
    the God of a scornful, judging, deadly No. Even if he
    were still able to command the attention of man, he
    would be a God whom man would have to avoid, from
    whom he would have to flee if he were able to flee, whom
    he would rather not know, since he would not in the
    least be able to satisfy his demands. Such a god might
    be embodied in deified “progress,” or even more likely
    by the progressive man.
    Many other theologies may be concerned with such
    exalted, superhuman, and inhuman gods, who can only
    be the gods of every sort of bad news, or dysangelion.
    But the God who is the object of evangelical theology is
    just as lowly as he is exalted. He is exalted precisely
    in his lowliness. And so his inevitable No is enclosed in
    his primary Yes to man. In this way, what God wills for
    man is a helpful, healing, and uplifting work, and what
    he does with him brings peace and joy. Because of this
    he is really the God of the euangelion, the Evangel, the
    Word that is good for man because it is gracious. With
    its efforts, evangelical theology responds to this gracious
    Yes, to God’s self-proclamation made in his friendliness
    toward man. It is concerned with God as the God of man, but just for this reason, also with man as God’s man. In evangelical theology, man is absolutely not, as Nietzsche has put it, “something that must be overcome.” On the contrary, for evangelical theology, man is that creature destined by God to be a conqueror. Strictly speaking, therefore, the word “theology” fails to exhaust the meaning of “evangelical theology,” for one decisive dimension of the object of theology is not expressed clearly by it. This dimension is the free love of God that evokes the response of free love, his grace (charis) that calls for gratitude (eucharistia). “Theoanthropology” would probably express better who and what is at stake here, with the provision that this should never be confused with “anthropotheology.”‘ Let us stick, therefore, to “theology,” as long as we do not forget that this theology is “evangelical” in the special sense we have just discussed. Since it is “evangelical,” it can by no means be devoted to an inhuman God, for in that case it would become legalistic theology. Evangelical theology is concerned with Immanuel, God with us! Having this God for its object, it can be nothing else but the most thankful and happy science!
    I would like to forgo any special explanation of the word “introduction,” which appears in the title of this work. At the same time, I wish to refrain from any discussion (which would be both polemic and irenic) of the manner in which a similar task has been conceived and carried out by Schleiermacher, as a “Short Presentation of Theological Study,” and by various others, as a “Theological Encyclopedia.” Whether and to what extent an introduction to evangelical theology is offered here may become clear during the process by which I attempt to present it.
    In this and the next three lectures we will undertake
    to determine the special place of that theology, which,
    according to our previous explanation, desires to be
    evangelical theology. What concerns us is not the place,
    right, and possibility of theology within the domain and
    limits of general culture; especially not within the
    boundaries of the universitas litterarum, or what is
    otherwise known as general humanistic studies ! Ever
    since the fading of its illusory splendor as a leading
    academic power during the Middle Ages, theology has
    taken too many pains to justify its own existence. It has
    tried too hard, especially in the nineteenth century, to
    secure for itself at least a small but honorable place
    in the throne room of general science. This attempt at
    self-justification has been no help to its own work. The
    fact is that it has made theology, to a great extent,
    hesitant and halfhearted ; moreover, this uncertainty
    has earned theology no more respect for its achievements than a very modest tip of the hat. Strange to say,
    the surrounding world only recommenced to take notice
    of theology in earnest (though rather morosely) when
    it again undertook to consider and concentrate more
    strongly upon its own affairs. Theology had first to
    renounce all apologetics or external guarantees of its
    position within the environment of other sciences, for
    it will always stand on the firmest ground when it
    simply acts according to the law of its own being. It
    will follow this law without lengthy explanations and
    excuses. Even today, theology has by no means done
    this vigorously and untiringly enough. On the other
    hand, what are “culture” and “general science,” after
    all? Have these concepts not become strangely unstable within the last fifty years? At any rate, are they not too
    beset by problems for us at present to be guided by
    them? All the same, we should certainly not disdain
    reflecting on what the rest of the academic world
    actually must think of theology. It is worth considering
    the place of theology within the university ; discussion
    may be held about the reason and justification for locating this modest, free, critical, and happy science sui
    generis in such an environment. But for the present
    moment, this question may be considered secondary.
    Compared to it, other questions are much more pressing.
    Who knows whether the answer to such secondary
    questions might not be reserved for the third millennium, when a new light may perhaps be cast on theology
    and its academic ambiance?
    The “place” of theology, as understood here, will be
    determined by the impetus which it receives from
    within its own domain and from its own object. Its
    object-the philanthropic God Himself-is the law
    which must be the continual starting point of theology.
    It is, as the military might say, the post that the theologian must take and keep, whether or not it suits him or
    any of his fellow creatures. The theologian has to hold
    this post at all costs, whether at the university or in the
    catacombs, if he does not wish to be imprisoned for dereliction of duty.
    The word “theology” includes the concept of the
    Logos. Theology is a logic, logic, or language bound to
    the theos, which both makes it possible and also determines it. The inescapable meaning of logos is “word,”
    however much Goethe’s Faust felt that he could not
    possibly rate “the word” so highly. The Word is not the
    only necessary determination of the place of theology,
    but it is undoubtedly the first. Theology itself is a word,
    a human response ; yet what makes it theology is not
    its own word or response but the Word which it hears and to which it responds. Theology stands and falls with the Word of God, for the Word of God precedes all theological words by creating, arousing, and challenging them. Should theology wish to be more or less or anything other than action in response to that Word, its thinking and speaking would be empty, meaningless, and futile. Because the Word of God is heard and answered by theology, it is a modest and, at the same time, a free science.’ Theology is modest because its entire logic can only be a human ana-logy to that Word ; analogical thought and speech do not claim to be, to say, to contain, or to control the original word. But it gives a reply to it by its attempt to co-respond with it; it seeks expressions that resemble the ratio and relations of the Word of God in a proportionate and, as far as feasible, approximate and appropriate way. Theology’s whole illumination can be only its human reflection, or mirroring (in the precise sense of “speculation”!) ; and its whole production can be only a human reproduction. In short, theology is not a creative act but only a praise of the Creator and of his act of creation -praise that to the greatest possible extent truly responds to the creative act of God. Likewise, theology is free because it is not only summoned but also liberated for such analogy, reflection, and reproduction. It is authorized, empowered, and impelled to such praise of its creator.
    What is required of theological thought and speech, therefore, is more than that they should simply conduct, direct, and measure themselves by that Word. It goes without saying that they must do that; and it is equally true that such concepts are relevant to the relationship of theology to the witnesses of the Word, of whom we will speak next.’ But for the relationship of theology to the Word itself, such concepts are too weak. The idea that autonomous man should be concerned with the response to the Word and its appropriate interpretation must be completely avoided. It cannot be simply supposed that man naturally stands in need of, and is subject to, the authority that encounters him in the Word. Before human thought and speech can respond to God’s word, they have to be summoned into existence and given reality by the creative act of God’s word. Without the precedence of the creative Word, there can be not only no proper theology but, in fact, no evangelical theology at all ! Theology is not called in any way to interpret, explain, and elucidate God and his Word. Of course, where its relationship to the witnesses of the Word is concerned, it must be an interpreter. But in relation to God’s Word itself, theology has nothing to interpret. At this point the theological response can only consist in confirming and announcing the Word as something spoken and heard prior to all interpretation. What is at stake is the fundamental theological act that contains and determines everything else. “Omnis recta cognitio Dei ab oboedientia nascitur” (Calvin).” Not only does this Word regulate theology and precede all theological interpretation ; it also and above all constitutes and calls theology forth out of nothingness into being, out of death into life. This Word is the Word of God. The place of theology is direct confrontation with this Word, a situation in which theology finds itself placed, and must again and again place itself.
    The Word of God is the Word that God spoke, speaks,
    and will speak in the midst of all men. Regardless of
    whether it is heard or not, it is, in itself, directed to all
    men. It is the Word of God’s work upon men, for men, and with men. His work is not mute; rather, it speaks
    with a loud voice. Since only God can do what he does,
    only he can say in his work what he says. And since his
    work is not divided but single (for all the manifold
    forms which it assumes along the way from its origin
    to its goal), his Word is also (for all its exciting richness) simple and single. It is not ambiguous but unambiguous, not obscure but clear. In itself, therefore, it
    is quite easily understandable to both the most wise and
    the most foolish. God works, and since he works, he also
    speaks. His Word goes forth. And if it be widely ignored
    de facto, it can never and in no place be ignored de jure.
    That man who refuses to listen and to obey the Word
    acts not as a free man but as a slave, for there is no
    freedom except through God’s Word. We are speaking
    of the God of the Gospel, his work and action, and of
    the Gospel in which his work and action are at the same
    time his speech. This is his Word, the Logos in which
    the theological logia, logic, and language have their
    creative basis and life.
    The Word of God is Gospel, that is, the good word, because it declares God’s good work. In this Word, God’s work itself becomes speech.’ Through his Word, God discloses his work in his covenant with man, in the history of its establishment, maintenance, accomplishment, and fulfillment. In this very way he discloses himself (both his holiness and his mercy) as man’s father, brother, and friend. At the same time, however, he discloses his power and his eminence as the possessor, Lord, and judge of man. He discloses himself as the primary partner of the covenant-himself as man’s God. But he also discloses man to be his creature, the debtor who, confronting him, is unable to pay. Man is lost in his judgment, yet also upheld and saved by his grace, freed for him and called by him to service and
    duty. He discloses man as God’s man, as God’s son and
    servant who is loved by him. Man is thus the other, the
    secondary, partner of the covenant. The revelation of
    the primacy of God and the station of man in the covenant is the work of God’s word. This covenant (in which
    God is man’s God and man is God’s man) is the content
    of the Word of God ; and God’s covenant, history, and
    work with man are the contents of his Word which
    distinguish it from all other words. This Logos is the
    creator of theology. By it, theology is shown its place
    and assigned its task. Evangelical theology exists in the
    service of the Word of God’s covenant of grace and
    peace.
    What follows now is in no wise different from what
    has been said already, but it now says the same thing
    concretely. Theology responds to the Word which God
    has spoken, still speaks, and will speak again in the
    history of Jesus Christ which fulfills the history of
    Israel. To reverse the statement, theology responds to
    that Word spoken in the history of Israel which reaches
    its culmination in the history of Jesus Christ. As Israel
    proceeds toward Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ proceeds
    out of Israel, so the Gospel of God goes forth. It is
    precisely the particularity of the Gospel which is its
    universality. This is the good Word of the covenant of
    grace and peace established, upheld, accomplished, and
    fulfilled by God. It is his Word of the friendly communion between himself and man. The Word of God, therefore, is not the appearance of an idea of such a covenant
    and communion. It is the Logos of this history, the
    Logos, or Word, of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
    Jacob, who, as such, is the Father of Jesus Christ. This
    Word, the Word of this history, is what evangelical
    theology must always hear, understand, and speak of anew. We shall now try to delineate what this history
    declares.
    First of all, this history speaks of a God who calls his
    own people to himself. Out of a tribal community which
    exemplifies all mankind, he calls his own people by acting upon it and speaking to it as its God and treating
    and addressing it as his people. The name of this God
    is Yahweh: “I am who I will be” or “I will be who I
    am” or “I will be who I will be.” And the name of this
    people is Israel, which means-not a contender for God,
    but-“contender against God.” The covenant is the
    encounter of this God with this people in their common
    history. The report of this history, although strangely
    contradictory, is not ambiguous. This history speaks of
    the unbroken encounter, conversation, and resultant
    communion between a holy and faithful God with an
    unholy and unfaithful people. It speaks of both the unfailing presence of the divine partner and the failure
    of the human partner that should be holy as he is holy,
    answering his faithfulness with faithfulness. While this
    history definitely speaks of the divine perfection of the
    covenant, it does not speak of its human perfection. The
    covenant has not yet been perfected. Israel’s history,
    therefore, points beyond itself ; it points to a fulfillment
    which, although pressing forward to become reality, has
    not yet become real.
    At this point, the history of Jesus, the Messiah of
    Israel, commences. In it the activity and speech of the
    God of Israel toward his people, rather than ceasing,
    attain their consummation. The ancient covenant, established with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, proclaimed by
    Moses, and confirmed to David, becomes in Jesus Christ
    a new covenant. The holy and faithful God of Israel
    himself now calls into existence and action his holy and
    faithful human partner. In the midst of his people he
    lets one become man and espouses the cause of this man totally. With him he expresses the same solidarity that
    a father has with his son; he affirms that he, God, is
    identical with this man. Certainly, what is fulfilled in
    the existence and appearance, in the work and word of
    Jesus of Nazareth, is the history of God and his Israel,
    of Israel and its God. But the fulfillment of Israel’s
    history is not its own continuation, as though God
    should raise up and call a new Moses, a further prophet,
    or a hero. Its fulfillment, instead, is the indwelling of God
    in this man, working and speaking through him. Anything less than this, obviously would be too little to fill
    up that vacuum. What the history of Jesus Christ confirms in the consummation of the history of Israel is
    this event in which the God of Israel consummates the
    covenant established with his people. The history of
    Jesus Christ is rooted deeply in the history of Israel,
    yet it soars high above Israel’s history. It speaks of the
    realized unity of true God and true man, of the God who
    descends to community with man, gracious in his freedom, and of man who is exalted to community with him,
    thankful in his freedom. In this way “God was in
    Christ.” In this way this one was and is the one who,
    although expected and promised, had not yet come forward in God’s covenant with Israel. And in this way the
    Word of God was and is the consummation of what was
    only heralded in the history of Israel : the Word become
    flesh.
    The history of Jesus Christ took place first and foremost for the benefit of Israel. It was the history of the
    covenant of God with Israel which attained its consummation in that subsequent history. And so God’s Word,
    which was fully spoken in the history of Jesus Christ
    when it became flesh in him, remains first and foremost
    his concluding word to Israel. This ought never to be
    forgotten ! Nevertheless, Israel was sent precisely as
    God’s mediator to the nations ; and this remains the meaning of the covenant made with it. The presence of
    God in Christ was the reconciliation of the world with
    himself in this Christ of Israel. In this consummating
    history, God’s Word was now spoken in and with this,
    his work, which was done in and upon Israel. His Word
    remains a comforting announcement to all fellow men
    of the one Son of God, an announcement calling for
    repentance and faith. It is God’s good Word about his
    good work in the midst, and for the good, of all creation.
    It is a Word directed to all peoples and nations of all
    times and places. The task of evangelical theology,
    therefore, is to hear, understand, and speak of the consummation of God’s Word, both its intensive and its
    extensive perfection as the Word of the covenant of
    grace and peace. In the Christ of Israel this Word has
    become particular, that is, Jewish flesh. It is in the
    particularity of the flesh that it applies universally to
    all men. The Christ of Israel is the Saviour of the world.
    This whole Word of God in Christ is the word to
    which theology must listen and reply. It is God’s Word
    spoken both in the relation of the history of Israel to
    the history of Jesus Christ and in the relation of the
    history of Jesus Christ to the history of Israel. It is the
    Word of God’s covenant with man-man who is alienated
    from God but who nevertheless is devoted to him, because God himself has interceded for man.
    If theology wanted to do no more than hear and
    relate this Word as it appears in the conflict between
    God’s faithfulness and man’s unfaithfulness, theology
    would not respond to the whole Word of God. Should it
    limit itself to the conflict which would be characteristic
    for the history of Israel as such, theology would completely miss the central truth of this Word. The fact is,
    there is no history of Israel in itself and for its own
    sake. There is only the single history which, though
    it has its source in God’s good will in overcoming Israel -the “contender with God”-nevertheless hastens toward a goal. It hastens toward the history of Jesus
    Christ, the establishment of the human partner who, for
    his part, is faithful to the divine partner. In Israel’s
    history there is no message that does not point beyond
    itself, that does not express its character as the Word
    of the divine partner at work in it. Every such message
    strives toward its consummation in the message of the
    history of Jesus Christ. Already containing this message
    within itself, Israel’s history is to this extent already
    Gospel.
    Theology would not respond to the whole Word of
    God if it wished only to hear and to speak of the Word
    become flesh. It would totally miss the truth of this
    Word if it proclaimed simply and solely the history of
    Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world. As if the reconciliation of the world with God were made at the expense
    of, or in abstraction from, the promises given to Israel !
    If theology wishes to hear and repeat what God has
    said, it must remain attentive to what happened in
    Israel’s history. What happened was the fulfillment and
    accomplishment of the reconciliation of Israel. The old,
    untiring, but now weary contender with God was reconciled by the will of the one true God. All the same, it
    was in this Jewish flesh that the Word of God now went
    forth into the whole world. “Salvation is from the Jews”
    (John 4:22). The covenant of God with man consists
    neither simply in the one nor simply in the other, but
    rather in the succession and unity of both forms of the
    history of the work of God. Similarly, the Word about
    this covenant goes forth in the same unity, since it is
    the Word of the selfsame God spoken both in the history
    of Israel and in the history of Jesus Christ. Their succession and unity form the whole Logos, and it is this
    unity of which evangelical theology must hear and
    speak. When theology fulfills this command, it takes and holds its post. To use a remarkable expression of
    Paul’s, theology is then logike latreia. Not theology only,
    but among other services rendered in the church, theology specifically is committed to offer “reasonable service” to God.
    A more precise determination of the place of evangelical
    theology requires that we take note of a definite (although not statistically definable) group of human beings. These enjoy a special and singular, indeed a
    unique, position in their relation to the Word of God.
    But their position is not special by virtue of a particular aptitude of sentiment or attitude toward the Word
    or by the fact that it might earn them particular favors,
    gratuities, or honors. Instead, it is special by virtue of
    the specific historical situation in which they are confronted by this Word, by the particular service to which
    the Word called and equipped them. They are the witnesses of the Word. To be more precise, they are its
    primary witnesses, because they are called directly by
    the Word to be its hearers, and they are appointed for
    its communication and verification to other men. These
    men are the biblical witnesses of the Word, the prophetic men of the Old Testament and the apostolic men
    of the New. They were contemporaries of the history in
    which God established his covenant with men. In fact,
    they became contemporary witnesses by virtue of what
    they saw and heard of this history. Other men, of course,
    were also contemporary witnesses of this history. But
    the prophets and apostles became and existed as eyewitnesses of those deeds done in their time, and hearers
    of the Word spoken in their time. They were destined,
    appointed, and elected for this cause by God, not by
    themselves; they were also commanded and empowered
    by him to speak of what they had seen and heard. They
    speak as men who in this qualified sense were there.
    The Logos of God in their witness is the concrete concern of evangelical theology. Though this theology has no direct information about the Logos, it nevertheless
    has, with the utmost certainty, this indirect information.
    The prophetic men of the Old Testament witnessed
    Yahweh’s action in the history of Israel, his action as
    father, king, lawgiver, and judge. They saw his free
    and constructive love, which nevertheless was a consuming love ; in Israel’s election and calling they beheld
    Yahweh’s grace, and in his kind but also severe and
    wrathful direction and rule over this people they saw
    his untiring protest and opposition to the conduct of
    Israel, the incorrigible contender with God. Israel’s
    history spoke to the prophets. In the manifold forms of
    this history they heard Yahweh’s commands, judgments,
    and threats as well as his promises-not confirmations
    of their own religious, moral, or political preferences, or
    their optimistic or pessimistic views, opinions, and
    postulates ! What they heard was, instead, the sovereign
    voice of the God of the covenant: “Thus says the Lord.”
    This is the God who is constantly faithful to his unfaithful human partner. It was his own Word which these
    witnesses were enabled, permitted, and called to echo,
    either as prophets in the narrower sense of the term,
    or as prophetic narrators, or occasionally as lawyers, or
    as prophetic poets and teachers of wisdom. In giving
    their witness they, of course, listened to their predecessors as well, appropriating in one way or another their
    answers and incorporating them into their own. It was
    Yahweh’s Word itself, as it was spoken in his history
    with Israel, which they brought to the hearing of their
    people. Naturally, each prophet also spoke within the
    limits and horizon of his time, its problems, culture, and
    language. They spoke, first of all, viva voce, but they also
    wrote down these words or had them written down so
    that they should be remembered by succeeding generations. The Old Testament canon is a collection of those
    writings which prevailed and were acknowledged in the synagogue. Their content was so persuasive that they
    were recognized as authentic, trustworthy, and authoritative testimonies to the Word of God. Evangelical theology hears witness of the Old Testament with the
    greatest earnestness and not merely as a sort of prelude
    to the New Testament. The classic rule is Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet, Vetus in Novo patet: the New
    Testament is concealed within the Old, and the Old
    Testament is revealed by the New. As long as theology
    preferred to neglect this rule, as long as it was content
    to exist in a vacuum by claiming exclusive orientation
    to the New Testament, it was continually threatened
    by a cancer in its very bones.
    Nevertheless, theology must obviously focus its attention on the goal of the history of Israel, on the prophetic Word spoken in this history, on the history of
    Jesus Christ as it is witnessed to by the apostolic men of
    the New Testament. What these men saw and heard,
    what their hands touched, was the fulfillment of the
    covenant in the existence and appearance of the one
    human partner who was obedient to God. This fulfillment was the Lord who as a servant lived, suffered, and
    died in the place of the disobedient; the Lord who uncovered but also covered their folly, taking upon himself, and taking away, their guilt, uniting them and reconciling them with their divine partner. In the death of
    this Lord they saw the old contender against God overcome and vanquished, and in the life of this Lord, another man come forward, the new contender for God. In
    him they saw the hallowing of God’s name, the coming
    of his kingdom, the fulfilling of his will on earth. In
    this event in time and space, in the “flesh,” they were
    allowed to hear the Word of God in its glory, as a pledge,
    promise, warning, and consolation to all men. By Jesus’
    commission the apostles were sent out into the world in order to attest to all men that Jesus is this Word of
    God.
    Once again, the subject and strength of their commission were neither their impressions of Jesus, their
    estimation of his person and his work, nor their faith
    in him. Instead, their theme was God’s mighty Word
    spoken in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead which imparted to his life and death power and control over all
    creatures of all times. The apostles spoke, told, wrote,
    and preached about Jesus as men who were in this way
    directly illumined and instructed. They spoke as men who
    had behind them the empty tomb and before them the
    living Jesus. Let it be noted that, apart from Jesus’ history as the mighty Word in which God’s reconciling act
    was revealed, the apostles lacked all interest in any other
    aspect of his history. They ignored any reality that
    might have preceded this history of salvation and revelation. There was simply no such reality; therefore they
    could not know or be concerned with any such hypothetical reality. Jesus’ history was real, and real to them,
    pre-eminently as a history of salvation and revelation.
    For them, Jesus’ reality was exclusively linked to their
    proclamation and based on his self-proclamation as
    Kurios, Son of God and son of man. It was neither a
    “historical Jesus” nor a “Christ of faith” which they
    knew and proclaimed, neither the abstract image of one
    in whom they did not yet believe nor the equally abstract
    image of one in whom they afterward believed. Instead, they proclaimed concretely the one Jesus Christ
    who had encountered them as the one who he was, even
    when they did not yet believe in him. Having their eyes
    opened by his resurrection, they were able to tell who
    he was who had made himself known to them before
    the resurrection. A twofold Jesus Christ, one who
    existed before and another who existed after Easter,
    can be deduced from New Testament texts only after he has been arbitrarily read into them. From the viewpoint
    even of “historical criticism,” such an operation ought
    to be considered profoundly suspect. The origin, object,
    and content of the New Testament witnesses were and
    are the one history of salvation and revelation in which
    Jesus Christ is both God’s deed and God’s Word. Before
    and behind this history, all that the New Testament witnesses could reflect and contemplate was its commencement in the history of Israel as evidenced by the Old
    Testament. To this preceding history, and to this alone,
    they were constantly oriented. The New Testament
    canon is a collection of testimonies, fixed in writing and
    handed down, which relate the history of Jesus Christ
    in a way which proved itself authentic to the communities of the second, third, and fourth centuries. In contrast
    to all kinds of similar literature these communities approved the canon as the original and faithful document
    of what the witnesses of the resurrection saw, heard,
    and proclaimed. They were the first to acknowledge this
    collection as genuine and authoritative testimony to the
    one Word of God, at the same time taking over, with a
    remarkable naturalness and ease, the Old Testament
    canon from the synagogue.
    We shall now attempt to clarify how evangelical
    theology is related to this biblical witness to the Word
    of God.
    First of all, theology shares with the biblical prophecy
    and apostolate a common concern for human response
    to the divine Word. The witnesses of the Old and New
    Testaments were men like all others, men who had heard
    the Word and witnessed to it in a human way-in
    speech, vision, and thought that were human and conditioned by time and space. They were theologians;
    yet, in spite of having an identical orientation to an
    identical object, as theologians they differed widely
    from one another. Anything other than their intention, anything more or less than that, cannot be the substance
    of evangelical theology. In its study of the two Testaments, what theology has to learn as much as anything
    else is the method of a human thought and speech as
    they are oriented to the Word of God.
    All the same, in the second place, theology is neither
    prophecy nor apostolate. Its relationship to God’s Word
    cannot be compared to the position of the biblical witnesses because it can know the Word of God only at
    second hand, only in the mirror and echo of the biblical
    witness. The place of theology is not to be located on
    the same or a similar plane with those first witnesses.
    Since the human reply to the Word will in practice always consist partially in a basic question, theology
    cannot and dare not presume that its human response
    stands in some immediate relationship to the Word
    spoken by God himself. At that moment when everything
    depended on being present, scientific theology, as defined earlier in these lectures, is completely absent.
    The position of theology, thirdly, can in no wise be
    exalted above that of the biblical witnesses. The postBiblical theologian may, no doubt, possess a better astronomy, geography, zoology, psychology, physiology,
    and so on than these biblical witnesses possessed ; but as
    for the Word of God, he is not justified in comporting
    himself in relationship to those witnesses as though he
    knew more about the Word than they. He is neither a
    president of a seminary, nor the Chairman of the Board
    of some Christian Institute of Advanced Theological
    Studies, who might claim some authority over the prophets and apostles. He cannot grant or refuse them a
    hearing as though they were colleagues on the faculty.
    Still less is he a high-school teacher authorized to look
    over their shoulder benevolently or crossly, to correct
    their notebooks, or to give them good, average, or bad
    marks. Even the smallest, strangest, simplest, or ob scurest among the biblical witnesses has an incomparable advantage over even the most pious, scholarly, and
    sagacious latter-day theologian. From his special point
    of view and in his special fashion, the witness has
    thought, spoken, and written about the revelatory Word
    and act in direct confrontation with it. All subsequent
    theology, as well as the whole of the community that
    comes after the event, will never find itself in the same
    immediate confrontation.
    Once and for all, theology has, fourthly, its position
    beneath that of the biblical scriptures. While it is aware
    of all their human and conditioned character, it still
    knows and considers that the writings with which it deals
    are holy writings. These writings are selected and separated ; they deserve and demand respect and attention
    of an extraordinary order, since they have a direct relationship to God’s work and word. If theology seeks to
    learn of prophecy and the apostolate, it can only and
    ever learn from the prophetic and apostolic witnesses.
    It must learn not this or that important truth but the
    one thing that is necessary-and with respect to this one
    thing on which all else depends, the biblical witnesses are
    better informed than are the theologians. For this reason theology must agree to let them look over its
    shoulder and correct its notebooks.
    In the fifth place, the peg on which all theology hangs
    is acquaintance with the God of the Gospel. This acquaintance is never to be taken for granted; it is never
    immediately available; it can never be carried about by
    the theologian in some intellectual or spiritual pillbox or
    briefcase. The knowledge of Immanuel, the God of man
    and for man, includes acquaintance with the man of God.
    That he is Abraham’s God, Israel’s God, man’s Godthis is Yahweh’s marvelous distinction from the gods of
    all other theologies. Theology has Immanuel-true God,
    true man-as its object when it comes from the Holy Scriptures and returns to them. “It is they that bear
    witness to me.” Theology becomes evangelical theology
    only when the God of the Gospel encounters it in the
    mirror and echo of the prophetic and apostolic word. It
    must also grasp God’s work and word as the theme and
    problem of its thinking and speaking, in the same way
    that the Yahwist and Elohist, Isaiah and Jeremiah, Matthew, Paul, and John saw and heard this
    Word. Many other things, much that is interesting,
    beautiful, good, and true, could also be communicated
    and disclosed to theology by all sorts of old and new
    literature of other kinds. But with respect to the theme
    and problem that make it theological science, it will,
    for better or for worse, have to stick to this literature,
    the Holy Scriptures.
    Nevertheless, in the sixth place, theology confronts in
    Holy Scriptures an extremely polyphonic, not a monotonous, testimony to the work and word of God. Everything that can be heard there is differentiated-not only
    the voices of the Old and New Testaments as such, but
    also the many voices that reverberate throughout both.
    It should be noted that the primary and real basis of this
    differentiation does not lie in the various psychological,
    sociological, and cultural conditions which existed for
    each witness. There is, of course, such a preliminary
    basis for differentiation in the profusion of biblical witnesses, in the various factors influencing their purposes
    and points of view, in the variety of their languages and
    the special theology of each. The primary basis, however, lies in the objective multiplicity and inner contrasts sustained within the motion of the history of the
    covenant which they recount and affirm. This motion is
    all-inclusive; it encompasses even its smallest elements,
    reflecting the interplay of unity and disunity between
    God and man as the witnesses disclose them. Therefore,
    although theology is certainly confronted with the one God, he is One in the fullness of his existence, action,
    and revelation. In the school of the witnesses theology
    can in no way become monolithic, monomanic, monotonous, and infallibly boring. In no way can it bind or
    limit itself to one special subject or another. In this
    school theology will be oriented to the unceasing succession of different loci of the divine work and word,
    and in this way theological understanding, thought, and
    speech will receive their definite place. In the school of
    these witnesses theology inevitably begins to wander,
    though always with the same goal in mind. It migrates
    from the Old Testament to the New and returns again,
    from the Yahwist to the priestly codex, from the psalms
    of David to the proverbs of Solomon, from the Gospel of
    John to the synoptic gospels, from the Letter to the Galatians to the so-called “straw” epistle of James, and so on
    continually. Within all of these writings the pilgrimage
    leads from one level of tradition to another, taking into
    account every stage of tradition that may be present or
    surmised. In this respect the work of theology might be
    compared to the task of circling a high mountain which,
    although it is one and the same mountain, exists and
    manifests itself in very different shapes. The eternally
    rich God is the content of the knowledge of evangelical
    theology. His unique mystery is known only in the overflowing fullness of his counsels, ways, and judgments.
    Theology responds to the Logos of God, in the seventh
    place, when it endeavors to hear and speak of him
    always anew on the basis of his self-disclosure in the
    Scriptures. Its searching of the Scriptures consists in
    asking the texts whether and to what extent they might
    witness to him; however, whether and to what extent
    they reflect and echo, in their complete humanity, the
    Word of God is completely unknown beforehand. This
    possibility must be seen and heard again and again, and
    this knowledge must be won from it and illuminated repeatedly. The open, candid question about this Word
    is what theology brings to the Bible. All other questions
    are only conjoined and subordinated to this question;
    they can present only technical aids to its solution.
    Nowadays, of course, the “exegetical-theological” task is
    often said to consist in the translation of biblical assertions out of the speech of a past time into the language
    of modern man. The remarkable assumption behind this
    project, however, seems to be that the content, meaning,
    and point of biblical assertions are relatively easy to
    ascertain and may afterward be presupposed as selfevident. The main task would be then simply to render
    these assertions understandable and relevant to the
    modern world by means of some sort of linguistic key.
    The message is all very well, it is said, but “how do you
    tell it to the man on the street?” The truth of the matter,
    however, is that the central affirmations of the Bible are
    not self-evident; the Word of God itself, as witnessed to
    in the Bible, is not immediately obvious in any of its
    chapters or verses. On the contrary, the truth of the
    Word must be sought precisely, in order to be understood
    in its deep simplicity. Every possible means must be
    used: philological and historical criticism and analysis,
    careful consideration of the nearer and the more remote
    textual relationships, and not least, the enlistment of
    every device of the conjectural imagination that is
    available.
    The question about the Word and this question alone
    fulfills and does justice to the intention of the biblical
    authors and their writings. And in passing, might not
    this question also do justice to modern man? If modern
    man is earnestly interested in the Bible, he certainly
    does not wish for its translation into his transitory
    jargon. Instead, he himself would like to participate in
    the effort to draw nearer to what stands there. This
    effort is what theology owes to modern man and, above all, to the Bible itself. “What stands there,” in the pages
    of the Bible, is the witness to the Word of God, the Word
    of God in this testimony of the Bible. Just how far it
    stands there, however, is a fact that demands unceasing
    discovery, interpretation, and recognition. It demands
    untiring effort-effort, moreover, which is not unaccompanied by blood and tears. The biblical witnesses and
    the Holy Scriptures confront theology as the object of
    this effort.
    When theology confronts the Word of God and its witnesses, its place is very concretely in the community,
    not somewhere in empty space. The word “community,”
    rather than “Church,” is used advisedly, for from a theological point of view it is best to avoid the word
    “Church” as much as possible, if not altogether. At
    all events, this overshadowed and overburdened word
    should be immediately and consistently interpreted by
    the word “community.” What may on occasion also be
    called “Church” is, as Luther liked to say, “Christianity”
    (understood as a nation rather than as a system of
    beliefs). It is the commonwealth gathered, founded, and
    ordered by the Word of God, the “communion of the
    saints.” These are the men who were encountered by the
    Word and so moved by it that they could not withdraw
    themselves from its message and call. Instead, they became able, willing, and ready to receive it as secondary
    witnesses, offering themselves, their lives, thought, and
    speech to the Word of God. The Word cries out for
    belief, for this acceptance in recognition, trust, and
    obedience. And since faith is not an end in itself, this
    cry of the Word means that it demands to be proclaimed
    to the world to which it is directed from the outset.
    First of all, the Word insists upon being annunciated
    by the choir of its primary witnesses. The community
    represents the secondary witnesses, the society of men
    called to believe in, and simultaneously to testify to, the
    Word in the world. In this community, theology also has
    its special place and function.
    “I believed, and so I spoke.” This attitude, taken over
    from the psalmist by Paul, indicates the situation peculiar to the entire community as such, and in the last analysis to each one of its members. The community is
    confronted and created by the Word of God. It is communio sanctorum, the communion of the saints, because
    it is congregatio fidelium, the gathering of the faithful.
    As such, it is the coniuratio testium, the confederation of
    the witnesses who may and must speak because they
    believe. The community does not speak with words alone.
    It speaks by the very fact of its existence in the world;
    by its characteristic attitude to world problems; and,
    moreover and especially, by its silent service to all the
    handicapped, weak, and needy in the world. It speaks,
    finally, by the simple fact that it prays for the world.
    It does all this because this is the purpose of its summons by the Word of God. It cannot avoid doing these
    things, since it believes. From the very beginning the
    community also expresses itself in spoken words and
    sentences by which, according to the summons of the
    Word, it attempts to make its faith audible. The work
    of the community consists also in its testimony through
    oral and written words, i.e., in the verbal self-expression
    by which it fulfills its commission of preaching, teaching, and pastoral counseling. And here begins the special
    service, the special function, of theology in the community.
    In the area between the faith of the community and
    its speech a problem arises. What is the proper understanding of the Word that founds faith, the proper
    thought about this Word, the proper way to speak of it?
    Here “proper” does not mean pious, edifying, inspired,
    and inspiring; neither does it mean something that
    would satisfy the categories of everyday reason, thought,
    and speech. Although such properties would certainly
    be well suited to the speech of the community, they have
    no decisive significance for what this speech must
    achieve. What is at stake is the quest for truth. Take
    note that the quest for truth is not imposed on the community by the outside world (as the community in
    modern times permits itself, to a large extent, to be
    persuaded). The quest is not imposed in the name and
    authority of some general norm of truth or some criterion that is generally proclaimed as valid. Instead, it
    comes from within, or, more precisely, from above; it
    comes from the Word of God that founds the community
    and it faith.
    The question about truth, therefore, is not stated
    in the familiar way: is it true that God exists? Does
    God really have a covenant with man? Is Israel really
    his chosen people? Did Jesus Christ actually die for
    our sins? Was he truly raised from the dead for our
    justification? And is he in fact our Lord? This is the
    way fools ask in their hearts-admittedly such fools as
    we are all in the habit of being. In theology the question
    about truth is stated on another level: does the community properly understand the Word in its purity as
    the truth? Does it understand with appropriate sincerity
    the Word that was spoken in and with all those events?
    Does the community reflect on the Word painstakingly
    and speak of it in clear concepts? And is the community
    in a position to render its secondary testimony responsibly and with a good conscience? These are the questions posed for the community, questions that are really
    urgent only for the people of God, and with regard to
    which no positive answer can ever or anywhere be taken
    for granted. Even the most able speech of the most living faith is a human work. And this means that the
    community can go astray in its proclamation of the
    Word of God, in its interpretation of the biblical testimony, and finally in its own faith. Instead of being
    helpful, it can be obstructive to God’s cause in the world
    by an understanding that is partly or wholly wrong, by
    devious or warped thought, by silly or too subtle speech.
    Every day the community must pray that this may not happen, but it must also do its own share of earnest
    work toward this goal. This work is theological work.
    There is no other way. In principle the community
    and the whole of Christianity are required and called
    to do such work. The question to be unceasingly posed
    for the community and for all its members is whether
    the community is a true witness. This question concerns,
    therefore, not only the community’s speech but also its
    very existence. The community speaks in the surrounding world by the positions it assumes on the political,
    social, and cultural problems of the world. But the
    question of truth also concerns the community’s order
    of worship, discipline, constitution, and administration,
    as well as its quiet ministerial work (which is perhaps
    not so quiet at all).
    Since the Christian life is consciously or unconsciously
    also a witness, the question of truth concerns not only
    the community but the individual Christian. He too is
    responsible for the quest for truth in this witness. Therefore, every Christian as such is also called to be a theologian. How much more so those who are specially
    commissioned in the community, whose service is preeminently concerned with speech in the narrower sense
    of the term ! It is always a suspicious phenomenon
    when leading churchmen (whether or not they are
    adorned with a bishop’s silver cross), along with certain
    fiery evangelists, preachers, or well-meaning warriors
    for this or that practical Christian cause, are heard to
    affirm, cheerfully and no doubt also a bit disdainfully,
    that theology is after all not their business. “I am not
    a theologian ; I am an administrator !” a high-ranking
    English churchman once said to me. And just as bad is
    the fact that not a few preachers, after they have exchanged their student years for the routine of practical
    service, seem to think that they are allowed to leave
    theology behind them as the butterfly does its caterpil lar existence, as if it were an exertion over and done
    with for them. This will not do at all. Christian witness
    must always be forged anew in the fire of the question
    of truth. Otherwise it can in no case and at no time be
    a witness that is substantial and responsible, and consequently trustworthy and forceful. Theology is no undertaking that can be blithely surrendered to others by anyone engaged in the ministry of God’s Word. It is no
    hobby of some especially interested and gifted individuals. A community that is awake and conscious of
    its commission and task in the world will of necessity be
    a theologically interested community. This holds true in
    still greater measure for those members of the community who are specially commissioned.
    It is fitting that there should be a special theological
    activity, just as there are special emphases in other
    tasks of the community. The special theological science,
    research, or doctrine concentrates on the testing of the
    whole communal enterprise in the light of the question
    of truth. It functions to a certain extent vicariously
    and even professionally. Moreover, it is related to the
    community and its faith in roughly the same manner as
    jurisprudence is related to the state and its law. The inquiry and doctrine of theology, therefore, are not an end
    in themselves but, rather, functions of the community
    and especially of its ministerium Verbi Divini. Theology
    is committed directly to the community and especially to
    those members who are responsible for preaching, teaching, and counseling. The task theology has to fulfill is
    continually to stimulate and lead them to face squarely
    the question of the proper relation of their human
    speech to the Word of God, which is the origin, object,
    and content of this speech. Theology must give them
    practice in the right relation to the quest for truth,
    demonstrating and exemplifying to them the understanding, thought, and discourse proper to it. It must accustom them to the fact that here nothing can be
    taken for granted, that work, just as prayer, is indispensable. It also has the task of exhibiting the lines
    along which this work is to be conducted.
    Theology would be an utter failure if it should place
    itself in some elegant eminence where it would be concerned only with God, the world, man, and some other
    items, perhaps those of historical interest, instead of
    being theology for the community. Like the pendulum
    which regulates the movements of a clock, so theology
    is responsible for the reasonable service of the community. It reminds all its members, especially those who
    have greater responsibilities, how serious is their situation and task. In this way it opens for them the way to
    freedom and joy in their service.
    But in order to serve the community of today, theology itself must be rooted in the community of yesterday.
    Its testimony to the Word and the profession of its faith
    must originate, like the community itself, from the
    community of past times, from which that of today
    arose. Theology must originate also from the older and
    the more recent tradition which determines the present
    form of its witness. The foundation of its inquiry and
    instruction is given to theology beforehand, along with
    the task which it has to fulfill. Theology does not labor
    somewhere high above the foundation of tradition, as
    though Church history began today. Nevertheless, the
    special task of theology is a critical one, in spite of its
    relative character. The fire of the quest for truth has
    to ignite the proclamation of the community and the
    tradition determining this proclamation. Theology has
    to reconsider the confession of the community, testing
    and rethinking it in the light of its enduring foundation,
    object, and content.
    The faith of the community is asked to seek understanding. Faith seeking understanding, Fides quaerens intellectum, is what theology must embody and represent.
    What distinguishes faith from blind assent is just its
    special character as “faith seeking understanding.” Certainly, the assumption behind all this will be that the
    community itself may have been on the right track in
    the recent or remote past, or at any rate on a not altogether crooked path. Consequently, fundamental trust
    instead of mistrust will be the initial attitude of theology toward the tradition which determines the presentday Church. And any questions and proposals which
    theology has to direct to the tradition will definitely not
    be forced on the community like a decree; any such
    findings will be presented for consideration only as wellweighed suggestions. Nevertheless, no ecclesiastical authority should be allowed by theology to hinder it from
    honestly pursuing its critical task, and the same applies
    to any frightened voices from the midst of the rest of
    the congregation. The task of theology is to discuss
    freely the reservations as well as the proposals for
    improvement which occur to it in reflection on the inherited witness of the community. Theology says credo,
    I believe, along with the present-day community and its
    fathers. But it says credo ut intelligam, “I believe in
    order to understand.” To achieve this understanding,
    it must be granted leeway for the good of the community
    itself. There are three points at which this freedom
    becomes important.
    First of all, a tacit presupposition in our last lecture
    on the immediate witnesses of the Word of God was that
    we know who these witnesses are. We presupposed that
    both the community and theology know the identity of
    these witnesses who, since they are immediate, are
    authoritative for the community and its service. A further presupposition was that we know which scriptures
    must be read and interpreted as “holy” Scripture and
    acknowledged and respected as the theological norm. In fact, we do know this, for theology is a service in and
    for the community and springs from the tradition of
    the community. In this matter theology clings to that
    confession which is perhaps the most important and
    portentous of all Church confessions of faith, i.e., it
    clings to the selection of the various writings that confirmed themselves to the community as genuinely prophetic and apostolic witnesses. It was this selection that
    was unanimously accepted by the community of the
    late fourth century. The character of these writings as
    such witnesses is what the fathers of those days recognized and confessed by faith in God’s Word, whose
    image and echo they perceived in them. To this knowledge and confession the community of every succeeding
    century has also committed itself, and with it, on the
    whole, it has had good and trustworthy experience. It is
    just this traditional canon which
    The precise task of theology, however, is credo ut in-
    telligam, “I believe in order to understand.” In the
    fulfillment of this task, theology seeks to grasp and
    understand specifically one thing : the extent to which
    the canonical collection acknowledged by earlier generations actually is the canon of Holy Scripture. But how
    can this question be decided other than through knowledge of the content of those writings? How else can the
    rightness of traditional respect for the canon be tested
    other than by activating that working hypothesis? How
    else other than by questioning the texts of the Old and
    New Testaments as to whether and to what extent authentic witness of God’s Word may be actually heard in
    them? How else, therefore, than in the careful investigation of those texts in the light of this question, by engagement in the exegetical circle that is unavoidable if those texts are to be understood? This investigation does not
    consist in premature anticipation but in expectation of
    an event, an event in which the authority of these texts
    announces itself. In this way theology sees, understands,
    and knows that the search for authentic witness to God’s
    Word is fruitful only if pursued in the original canon.
    Theology knows also, however, that this search in the
    canon must be conducted with earnestness and total
    frankness. To be sure, theology always gropes to a great
    extent in the dark, with only a gradual, variable, partial
    knowledge. Nevertheless, even limited knowledge may
    convey, like a look through a keyhole, a glimpse of the
    riches of God’s glory which is mirrored in the totality of
    the Biblical testimony.
    In the second place, the thought and speech of the
    community have behind them a long history which is,
    in many ways, confused and confusing. The community’s
    attention to the voice of the Old and New Testaments
    and to the Word of God witnessed by this voice was not
    always sensitive and accurate. It did not always withstand the temptation to listen to all sorts of strange
    voices as well, and often it listened almost entirely to
    them-to the voice of the old serpent. The dogmas,
    creeds, and confessions of the community are the documents of its resistance to this temptation and, at the
    same time, of its repenting return to its origins. They
    are the professions of its faith, formulated in opposition
    to all sorts of unbelief, superstition, and error. If theology did not take seriously the tradition of the community in the form of these documents of conflict, it
    would not be service in and for the community. In attempting to be equal to the quest for truth today, it
    must show both respect for the tradition and eagerness
    to learn from it. It must take note how one thing was
    occasionally defined and proclaimed as right and another
    anathematized as wrong magno consensu, by the consent of the majority of the fathers, during times of the
    beclouding of the Christian witness. Theology will often
    enough have occasion to wonder at the wisdom and
    determination of the decisions of the fathers that were
    made in their time and became significant for all times.
    Nevertheless, the significance of tradition may not be
    simply taken for granted. Credo, indeed ! But credo, ut
    intelligam. No dogma or article of the creed can be
    simply taken over untested by theology from ecclesiastical antiquity; each must be measured, from the very
    beginning, by the Holy Scripture and the Word of God.
    And under no circumstances may theology set out to
    appropriate creedal propositions merely because they
    are old and widespread and famous. If it is seriously
    committed to the quest for truth, it will forgo seeking
    the name and fame of an “orthodoxy” faithful to tradition. There is no heterodoxy worse than such orthodoxy !
    Theology knows and practices only one faithfulness. All
    the same, just this one faithfulness may perhaps prove
    to be also faithfulness to the confessions of the early
    Church and the Reformation for long stretches of the
    way, on the basis of the intellectus fidei, the understanding which is characteristic of faith.
    Thirdly and finally, a brief comment is called for by
    the fact that the history of theology itself belongs to the
    tradition determining the community. As in all previous
    considerations, the communio sanctorum may and should
    be the starting point for understanding, even though
    this hypothesis is by no means easy to carry out (least
    of all in this case!). Nevertheless, the risk must be taken.
    The same hypothesis and risk apply particularly to the
    ruling theology of the past, whether of yesterday, of
    fifty, or of a hundred years ago. Time and again, the
    community grows used to living from what was said in
    it and to it yesterday; as a rule it lives from the Christian knowledge of yesterday. In the meantime, it is to be hoped, theology has advanced somewhat further, and
    what it supposes to know, what it ventures to think and
    to say today, will only seldom agree completely with
    what the fathers of yesterday thought and said. The far
    greater likelihood is that the newer theology will vigorously take exception to the fathers, especially to the
    immediate fathers. Even if this tension is justified by
    the vigorous nature of theological science, theology will
    still do well to keep in contact with its predecessors.
    For better or for worse, theology of yesterday is a
    bubbling source of the community and, above all, of theology itself. We will listen, therefore, with special attention precisely to those fathers of yesterday, interpreting them not only according to the critical rule,
    credo ut intelligam, but also in optimum partem bona fide,
    and making the best of them. By no means will we drop
    the problems which concerned them; instead, we will
    pursue them further, repeatedly meditating, considering,
    and reconsidering the very problems they posed, although at the same time no doubt putting them in the
    right perspective. Otherwise, theology might find the
    sons of today proving tomorrow to be enthusiastic rediscoverers and perhaps avengers of their grandfathers.
    The work of overcoming past weaknesses and errors, a
    work which was perhaps only apparently completed,
    would then have to begin all over again. May the good
    Lord preserve us from that !
    We cannot overlook the fact that we ventured some very
    extraordinary statements in the last three lectures on
    the determination of the place of evangelical theology.
    Taken by themselves, of course, they may have been tolerably distinct and understandable, interrelated among
    themselves and also mutually confirming. Nevertheless, in their wholeness, as in their particulars, they
    were obviously statements that were not supported by
    what is usually considered sound evidence. They could
    not be derived from any points outside of the sphere of
    reality and truth which they themselves represented.
    They were not founded upon any results of a general
    science oriented to nature, man, the human spirit, or
    history, just as they had no dependence upon any philosophical foundations. Like the Melchizedek of the Letter
    to the Hebrews, each single sentence and all of them
    together were “without father or mother or genealogy.”
    When we, nevertheless, ventured these statements, what
    power did we acknowledge? What is the power hidden
    within these assertions which establishes and illumines
    them? In other words, how does theology come to take
    and hold the place described by them-a place which
    seems to the onlooker to be situated in mid-air?
    Let us recapitulate briefly in order to pinpoint this
    situation for ourselves. In our second lecture, “The
    Word,” we ventured the statement that the history of
    Immanuel arose from the history of Israel and attained
    its goal in the history of Jesus Christ, and that this
    history, as such, was God’s Word spoken to the people
    of all times and places. What a history ! What a Word !
    What is the power that makes it so great a history and
    so bright a revelation? In our third lecture, “The Wit nesses,” we ventured the statement that there is a definite group of men, the biblical prophets and apostles,
    who directly heard the Word of that history. They were
    called by it to become its authentic and authoritative
    witnesses to the people of all times and places. How were
    these witnesses specially selected for such hearing? How
    were these men, no different from others, chosen for
    such proclamation? By what possible power? In our
    fourth lecture, “The Community,” we ventured the affirmation that a whole group of men arose as secondary
    witnesses through the power of the Word spoken and
    entrusted to those earlier, primary witnesses. A community arose, the Church, destined and commissioned to
    proclaim the work and word of God in the world. What
    an extraordinary commission for a group of men ! What
    is the power of their existence and action?
    Obviously, all these assertions were ventured solely
    in order to describe the place of evangelical theology.
    Obviously, they had, as such, a strictly theological character and content. They could be only theologically guaranteed, only theologically intended and understood.
    What, then, is theology? According to these foregoing
    statements, by which we described its place, theology
    can be only theologically defined. Theology is science
    seeking the knowledge of the Word of God spoken in
    God’s work-science learning in the school of Holy
    Scripture, which witnesses to the Word of God ; science
    laboring in the quest for truth, which is inescapably
    required of the community that is called by the Word of
    God. In this way alone does theology fulfill its definition
    as the human logic of the divine Logos. In every other
    respect theology is really without support. While, seen
    from the viewpoint of an outsider, it hovers in mid-air,
    it depends actually upon God’s living Word, on God’s
    chosen eyewitnesses, and on the existence of God’s people
    in the world. This dependence is its foundation, justifi cation, and destination. The power of its existence is the
    power focused through those statements we have made
    about God’s Word, God’s witnesses, and God’s people.
    We will carefully refrain from speaking of a power
    presupposed either by us, in our theological assertions
    about the place of theology, or by theology itself in the
    form of any further theological statement. All would be
    betrayed, all would be false if we were to speak in this
    way. Theology cannot lift itself, as it were, by its own
    boot straps, to the level of God ; it cannot presuppose
    anything at all concerning the foundation, authorization, and destination of its statements. It can presuppose
    no help or buttress from the outside and just as little
    from within. If theology wished to provide a presupposition for its statements, it would mean that it sought to
    make them, itself, and its work safe from any attack,
    risk, or jeopardy. It would presume that it could and
    must secure them (even if this presupposition was a
    tour de force, a Deus ex machina introduced in the form
    of a further theological statement). Precisely in this
    way theology would sell its birthright for a mess of pottage. Theology can only do its work. It cannot, however,
    seek to secure its operation. Its work can be well done
    only when all presuppositions are renounced which
    would secure it from without or within.
    What can be arbitrarily presupposed, obviously stands
    at one’s disposal. Were theology to presuppose the
    power sustaining its statements and itself (in the manner that mathematics presupposes the axioms supporting its theorems), then theology would assume power in
    its own right, superior to that first and fundamental
    power. Theology could then muster that power for its
    self-protection or at least place it on guard duty. The
    true power, which is powerful in its own right, defies
    being a potency which theology can possess and manipulate in its statements. Such presumed potency would be something like Miinchausen trying to pull himself out of
    the bog by his own hair. In one way or another the very
    thing theology seeks (because in fact it needs it) would
    be lost whenever theology attempted to rely upon such
    an arbitrary presupposition.
    We have to speak, therefore, of the real power that is
    hidden in theological assertions-hidden, unattainable,
    unavailable not only to the environment but also to the
    very theology which serves the community. This is the
    power present and active in what the affirmations of
    theology declare, in the history of salvation and revelation, in the hearing and speech of the biblical witnesses,
    in the being and act of the community summoned by
    them, and also in the work of theology when it testifies
    to these things. But this power is also totally superior to
    theology itself. It sustains and activates that whole
    event from the history of Immanuel down to the little
    tale in whose telling theology also, finally and at the last,
    has its existence and activity. In the telling of this tale,
    that hidden power prevents and forbids the slightest
    attempt to construct treacherous presuppositions. Most
    of all, it excludes the presumption that theology can vindicate itself. That power makes all arbitrary presupposing superfluous, since it is a productive power which
    replaces all safeguards stemming from other sources.
    It is power that produces security, of course-but just
    because its power is creative and sufficient to produce
    security, it is so effective that even the greatest theological master cannot, as it were, play with it as though
    it were one of his chessmen (perhaps the most powerful
    -the Queen). It is not endowed with a potentiality which
    the theologian knows and can exploit, as though he could
    overlook its origin, significance, and limits, The theologian does not have it in his control. This power is by
    no means a further theological assumption which he,
    much like a magician, could employ or not employ ac cording to need or desire. He should be happy if, while
    brooding over his work, he hears the hidden power
    rushing, and finds his statements determined, ruled,
    and controlled by it. But he does not know “whence
    it comes or whither it goes.” He can wish only to
    follow its work, not to precede it. While he lets his
    thought and speech be controlled by it, he gladly renounces the temptation to exert control over it. Such
    is the sovereignty of this power in the event of the
    history of Immanuel ; such its sovereignty over and in
    the prophets and apostles ; such its sovereignty in the
    gathering, upbuilding, and sending forth of the community; such its sovereignty as the hidden power of theological statements that describe and explain all thisstatements such as we ventured in the three preceding
    lectures. No wonder that from the viewpoint of an outsider, these assertions seem to hover in mid-air, apparently crying for safeguards.
    Is this true only from the viewpoint of an outsider?
    And do these assertions only apparently hover? It is
    precisely at this point that we must think further if
    we are to name this sovereign power by its true name.
    Is the phrase “hovering in mid-air” supposed to be
    something that characterizes theology only in its external aspect? Does it pertain to theology only apparently,
    as something probably harmful, from which theology
    should be acquitted as soon as possible? Still, “mid-air”
    could, above all, mean flowing, fresh, healthy air in
    contrast to all motionless and stagnant office air. And to
    “hover” in mid-air could also mean to be moved, borne,
    and driven by this flowing air. Who could actually wish
    that it were otherwise? It should be characteristic for
    theology to be borne and driven by this powerfully agitated and stirring air, not hindered by any safeguards
    existing ultimately and decisively in this very open air
    as its native habitat. All this should characterize theology if for no other reason than that such free mobility and
    movement are also the place of the community which
    lives from God’s Word. On a higher level such motion is
    the place of the witnesses who directly hear and transmit
    the Word of God. And on a still higher level it is also the
    place where the history of Immanuel, as God’s work, becomes God’s Word. All this takes place in the realm of
    that freely moved and moving air, the gentle or stormy
    wind, the divine spiratio and inspiratio. According to the
    Bible, God’s “spiration” and inspiration are the effective
    powers by which God discloses himself freely to men,
    making them accessible to himself and so on their part
    free for him.
    The biblical name of this sovereign effective power
    is roach or pneuma. And both terms mean, specifically,
    moved and moving air; they mean breath, wind, probably also storm, and in this sense, spirit. In the Latin
    spiritus and also in the French esprit this significance
    is rather clearly recognizable. In English the word
    should certainly not be reproduced by “Ghost” with its
    frightening proximity to “spooks.” In German, unfortunately, Geist is a word which makes the dynamic significance of the biblical term altogether unrecognizable. Our
    use of the term, however, will be taken from the biblical
    axiom: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (II Cor. 3:17). The freedom of which we talk is
    God’s freedom to disclose himself to men, to make men
    accessible to himself, and so to make them on their part
    free for him. The one who does that is the Lord God,
    who is the Spirit. There are also other spirits, those
    created good by God, such as the spirit natural to man.
    Moreover, there are demonic, erring, and disruptive
    spirits of annihilation which deserve nothing else than
    to be driven out. But none of these are that sovereign
    power of which we speak. Of none of them, not even of
    the best among them, can it be said that where they are, there is freedom. They must all be tested for the direction of their current, for their source from above or
    below. Above all, however, they must again and again
    be distinguished from the Spirit that, working in the
    ambiance of divine freedom, creates human freedom. In
    the Nicene Creed (as it was adopted by the Western
    Churches) the Spirit is called “the Holy One, the Lord
    and Giver of life,” who “proceeds from the Father and
    from the Son, who together with the Father and the Son
    is adored and glorified.” That is to say, the spirit is
    himself God, the same one God who is also the Father
    and the Son; he acts both as Creator and as Reconciler,
    as the Lord of the covenant. As this very Lord, however, he now dwells, has dwelt, and will dwell in men. He
    dwells not only among them but also in them by the
    enlightening power of his action. It is that flowing air
    and moving atmosphere in which men may live, think,
    and speak wholly and entirely freed from presuppositions-for they are men who know the spirit and are
    known by him, men called by him and obedient to him,
    his children begotten by his Word.
    According to the second biblical saga of creation, God
    breathed into man “the breath of life,” man’s own spirit.
    This is the way the Spirit “spoke by the prophets,” to
    use another phrase of the Nicene Creed. In this way
    John the Baptist saw the Spirit descend at the Jordan
    on the one who there, in solidarity with all sinners, accepted for himself the baptism of repentance. In this
    way the Spirit was the origin of the existence of the
    Son in the world of men-the Son who was conceptus de
    Spiritu Sancto, conceived of the Holy Spirit. In this
    way the spirit was the origin of the apostolate that proclaims the Son, as well as his nascent community. According to the Book of Acts, “suddenly a sound came
    from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled
    all the house where they were sitting.” By this power the disciples were enabled to speak of the mighty works of
    God and to be immediately understood even by those
    strangers who were present from every corner of the
    globe. It is in this manner that they spoke; and although
    they gave the impression of being drunk, it was as a
    result of this spirare and inspirare that the Word was
    understood and accepted by three thousand people. The
    Spirit himself was present, God the Spirit, the Lord who
    is the Spirit. This was his invasion, incitement, and witness to “what is in God” and “what has been given us
    by God,” his power arousing and begetting the confession “Jesus is Lord !”
    It was the Spirit whose existence and action make
    possible and real (and possible and real up to this very
    day) the existence of Christianity in the world. Up to
    this very day the Spirit calls into being the existence of
    every single Christian as a believing, loving, hoping
    witness to the Word of God. The Spirit does this certainly and irresistibly (for to wish to withstand him,
    when he steps in and acts, would be the one unforgivable sin), for he alone does this. “Any one who does not
    have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Rom.
    8:9).
    It is clear that evangelical theology itself can only be
    pneumatic, spiritual theology. Only in the realm of the
    power of the Spirit can theology be realized as a humble,
    free, critical, and happy science of the God of the Gospel.
    Only in the courageous confidence that the Spirit is the
    truth does theology simultaneously pose and answer the
    question about truth.
    How does theology become the human logic of the
    divine Logos? The answer is that it does not become
    this at all ; rather, theology may find that the Spirit
    draws near and comes over it, and that theology may
    then, without resisting, but also without assuming dominion over the Spirit, simply rejoice and obey its power. Unspiritual theology, whether it works its woe in
    the pulpit or from the rostrum, on the printed page or
    in “discussions” among old or young theologians, would
    be one of the most terrible of all terrible occurrences on
    this earthly vale. It would be so bad as to be without comparison with the works of even the worst political journalist or the most wretched novels or films. Theology becomes unspiritual when it lets itself be enticed or evicted
    from the freshly flowing air of the Spirit of the Lord, in
    which it alone can prosper. The Spirit departs when
    theology enters rooms whose stagnant air automatically
    prevents it from being and doing what it can, may, and
    must be and do.
    The departure of the Spirit from theology can occur in
    two ways.
    The first possibility is that theology, whether it is
    primitive or exceedingly cultivated, whether old-fashioned or, perhaps, most fashionable, will no doubt be
    practiced more or less zealously, cleverly, and probably
    also piously. In any case it will certainly be occasionally
    reminded of the problem of the Holy Spirit. Yet this
    theology does not muster the courage and confidence to
    submit itself fearlessly and unreservedly to the illumination, admonition, and consolation of the Spirit. It refuses to permit itself to be led by him into all truth. By
    such refusal, theology fails to give, in its inquiry,
    thought, and teaching, the honor due the Spirit of the
    Father and the Son that was certainly poured out over
    all flesh for its sake. One moment theology stands in
    out-and-out fear of the Spirit; in another it plays dumb,
    perhaps pretending to be better informed or else becoming obstinate in open opposition to him. As soon as the
    Spirit begins to stir within it, it suspects the danger of
    fanaticism; or it may rotate in circles of historicism,
    rationalism, moralism, romanticism, dogmaticism, or intellectualism, while “round about lies green and pleasant pasture.”‘
    When theology poses and answers the question about truth in the above style and manner, it certainly cannot be serviceable to the community which, like itself, is totally dependent on the Holy Spirit. Its effect will be just the opposite! If theology is in the same situation as those disciples of John in Ephesus, who reportedly did not even know that there was a Holy Spirit, then theology must inevitably open the door to every possible, different, and strange spirit that aims at nothing other than to disturb and destroy the community, the church, and itself. Unpleasant consequences cannot and will not be lacking ! Human criticism, mockery, and accusation, to be sure, cannot help theology when it is in this predicament. Only the Spirit himself can rescue theology ! He, the Holy One, the Lord, the Giver of Life, waits and waits to be received anew by theology as by the community. He waits to receive from theology his due of adoration and glorification. He expects from theology that it submit itself to the repentance, renewal, and reformation he effects. He waits to vivify and illuminate its affirmations which, however right they may be, are dead without the Spirit.
    The second possibility is that theology may know only too well about the rival power of the Spirit, which is indispensable to Christianity, to every Christian, and to it as well. Just because of this familiarity, theology may once again fail to acknowledge the vitality and sovereignty of this power which defies all domestication. In such a situation theology forgets that the wind of the Spirit blows where it wills. The presence and action of the Spirit are the grace of God who is always free, always superior, always giving himself undeservedly and without reservation. But theology now supposes it can
    deal with the Spirit as though it had hired him or even attained possession of him. It imagines that he is a power
    of nature that can be discovered, harnessed, and put to
    use like water, fire, electricity, or atomic energy. As a
    foolish church presupposes his presence and action in
    its own existence, in its offices and sacraments, ordinations, consecrations and absolutions, so a foolish theology presupposes the Spirit as the premise of its own
    declarations. The Spirit is thought to be one whom it
    knows and over whom it disposes. But a presupposed
    spirit is certainly not the Holy Spirit, and a theology
    that presumes to have it under control can only be unspiritual theology.
    The Holy Spirit is the vital power that bestows free mercy on theology and on theologians just as on the community and on every single Christian. Both of these remain utterly in need of him. Only the Holy Spirit himself can help a theology that is or has become unspiritual. Only the Spirit can assist theology to become enduringly conscious and aware of the misery of its arbitrary devices of controlling him. Only where the Spirit is sighed, cried, and prayed for does he become present and newly active.
    Veni creator Spiritus! “Come, 0 come, thou Spirit of life!” Even the best theology cannot be anything more or better than this petition made in the form of resolute work. Theology can ultimately only take the position of one of those children who have neither bread nor fish, but doubtless a father who has both and will give them these when they ask him. In its total poverty evangelical theology is rich, sustained, and upheld by its total lack of presuppositions. It is rich, sustained, and upheld, since it lays hold on God’s promise, clinging without skepticism, yet also without any presumption, to the
    promise according to which-not theology, but-“the
    Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. It is quite possible that in our previous lectures, in which we were concerned with the determination of the place of theology, theology itself might not yet have convincingly appeared as an element of real human life. In spite of all our warnings, it might still seem to be an abstract scheme or an hypostasis. It might even seem like one of the nameless virgins found on the facades of many medieval churches : whether clever or foolish, they are all the same made of stone. This impression must not go unchallenged. Evangelical theology is always a history; it takes place in flesh and blood, in the existence and action of a human being, within the theologian in the narrower and broader sense of the term. It is precisely toward the theologian that we must now direct our attention. We must ask how theology encounters a man (to use the terminology popular nowadays) and how it confronts him, enters into him, and assumes concrete form in him. We are now approaching what may be called, with a slight and noncommittal bow before the gods of presentday philosophy, the "existentials" of evangelical theology. As in our preceding attempt to determine the place of theology, we will once again proceed in concentric circles. The first and most removed circle will now be designated by the word "wonder." If anyone should not find himself astonished and filled with wonder when he becomes involved in one way or another with theology, he would be well advised to consider once more, from a certain remoteness and without prejudice, what is involved in this undertaking. The same holds true for anyone who should have accomplished the feat of no longer being astonished, instead of becoming continually more astonished all the time that he concerns himself with this subject. When he reconsiders the subject, however, such a man might find that astonishment wells up within him anew, or perhaps even for the first time. And this time such wonder might not desert him but might rather become increasingly powerful in him. That astonishment should remain or become wholly foreign to him is scarcely conceivable. But should that happen, both he and theology would fare better if he would devote his time to some other occupation. A quite specific astonishment stands at the beginning of every theological perception, inquiry, and thought, in fact at the root of every theological word. This astonishment is indispensable if theology is to exist and be perpetually renewed as a modest, free, critical, and happy science. If such astonishment is lacking, the whole enterprise of even the best theologian would canker at the roots. On the other hand, as long as even a poor theologian is capable of astonishment, he is not lost to the fulfillment of his task. He remains serviceable as long as the possibility is left open that astonishment may seize him like an armed man. In general terms, wonder occurs when someone encounters a spiritual or natural phenomenon that he has never met before. It is for the moment something uncommon, strange, and novel to him. He cannot even provisionally assign it a place in the previous circle of his ideas about the possible. For the time being he can only inquire into its origin and essence. Up to this point the concept of wonder is identical with the Socratic thau- mazein-wonder that is astonished but receptive and desirous to learn. It has been justly said that this Socratic amazement is the root of all true science. The sense in which we have introduced the concept here likewise signifies an astonished and receptive desire to learn. Still, our concept involves more than a provisional hesitation and inquiry with respect to an uncommon, strange, and new phenomenon. Such phenomena might sooner or later, in the course of scientific progress, become something common, familiar and, to this extent, old and well known. They would then dispense man once again from his wonder, allowing him to divert his attention to other phenomena which, although at first astonishing, would certainly sooner or later cease to be so. Another kind of wonder assumes control over a man when he takes up the subject of theology. Certainly this amazement also obliges a man to wonder and compels him to learn. But in theological wonder it is a sheer impossibility that he might one day finish his lessons, that the uncommon might become common, that the new might appear old and familiar, that the strange might ever become thoroughly domesticated. If a man could domesticate this wonder, he would not yet have taken the step into theology, or he would already have stepped out of it again. Man is never dismissed from the wonder that forms the sound root of theology. The object of theology never encounters a man routinely as does an ordinary object of the world. Instead, it constantly hovers on the edge of his circle of reflection, however large the circle may be. Progress in science, at this point, can only mean that theological hesitation and inquiry, in the face of the object of theology, more and more gain the upper hand. This captivation by the object will by no means ever lose its hold on man. If man becomes ever newly surprised then he becomes entirely and irrevocably a man who wonders. "Wonderment" arises from "wonder." Whoever begins to concern himself with theology also begins to concern himself from first to last with wonders. Won ders are the occurrence, presence, and activity of what is basically and definitively incompatible and unassimilable to the norm of common experience. Theology is necessarily the logic of wonders, but it is not only the logic of wonders. It would cease to be theology if it should be ashamed of the fact that it is completely unable to categorize its object. It would not be theology should it refuse to confront the problem this inability poses. A glance at the biblical stories about wonders or miracles will be instructive at this point. Such stories play a scandalously large role in the biblical testimony to the work and word of God. In the special sense of the biblical term, "wonders" are occurrences in time and space that have no analogies. Provisionally and nontechnically defined, they are events that have no place in the generally familiar uninterrupted causal pattern of spatial and temporal events. Their "historical" verification (in the modern sense of this term) can apparently consist only in the observation and description of the certain fact that at an historically known place, occurrences of this kind have been reported. Anything more than this observation, whether positive or negative, would overstep the bounds of such historical verification. But narratives about just such occurrences are what form an integral part of the biblical witness to the history of the covenant of grace. This witness and its content would be violated if the biblical reports were reduced to the level of different kinds of occurrences. The biblical stories, for instance, might be identified with occurrences which are understandable or "naturally explicable" within the causal relationships generally familiar and acknowledged as uninterrupted. Or they might be ignored as though they had not happened, simply because they are described as such incomparable occurrences. For the same reason, they might be re interpreted as symbolic expressions of events that were really only immaterial, or as exuberant outbursts of the astonishing faith of the biblical witnesses. Theology cannot employ either the first or the second or the third of the foregoing interpretations. It cannot allow itself to be sidetracked from the question about the work and word of God which are reflected in the biblical witness as it is spoken. Those theologians and nontheologians hunt for the impossible and nonsensical who assume that the quest for the truth entrusted to theology must be identified with an inquiry into the possibility, verifiability, and ex- plicability of the events that form the backbone of the Bible's message. Rather, theology has to recognize that the Bible's miracle stories have an essential place in the whole of the history narrated and explained by prophets and apostles. Theology must concern itself with the task of finding out what exactly is the place, the role, the relevance of those stories. There are theologians who prostrate themselves before the criteria of modern historiography ; they are quick to label and to dismiss the miracle stories as sagas or legends. There are others who think and judge from within the framework and special character of the biblical witness; even when their attitude to the miracles is less skeptical, they are still in their own way also concerned with history. Both groups cannot possibly negate the essential and necessary function performed by the miracle stories in the whole and in decisive parts of the biblical message. What is the role of these stories? As fundamentally astonishing stories, they function first of all in a formal way as a sort of alarm signal, which is the reason the New Testament likes to term them "signs." Scattered at times thickly and at other times more sparsely throughout the history of Immanuel, they alert the hearer and reader to a central fact: this history is concerned with a fundamentally new event which, although undoubtedly occurring within time and space, is not to be identified with other events occurring within the limits of time and space. This event springs up in their midst and is not some sort of continuation of what otherwise has happened or still happens in time and space. The Word which is spoken and speaks in this history is a fundamentally new word. Although it undoubtedly exists within time and space, it can be heard only in this history and is not to be compared with any other words. When the biblical miracle stories excite serious and relevant wonderment, they intend to do this as signals of something fundamentally new, not as a violation of the natural order which is generally known and acknowledged. This way they excite the type of wonderment from which no one can excuse himself once he has begun to pursue the subject of theology. But what is the new element signaled by these miracle stories? Astonishment in itself might still be something like an uncomprehending, openmouthed marveling at the portentum or stupendum as such. To what do the following phrases point? "'Rise, take up your bed and go home.' " "'Come out of the man, you unclean spirit !"' "'Peace, Be still !' " as was called out to a stormy sea. "You give them to eat !’ ” as was said concerning the five
    thousand who were hungry in the wilderness. “‘Lazarus,
    come out !”‘ “‘He has risen, he is not here.’ ” According
    to the biblical testimony, what happened following such
    statements was always a change in the ordinary course of
    the world and nature which threatened and oppressed
    man. Though these changes were isolated and temporary,
    they were nevertheless radically helpful and saving.
    What took place were promises and intimations, anticipations of a redeemed nature, of a state of freedom, of a
    kind of life in which there will be no more sorrow, tears, and crying, and where death as the last enemy will be no
    more. What is communicated under the form of these
    little lights is always the reflected brightness of the
    great light which draws near to the men of the present
    in the form of hope. What is at stake is the summons,
    “‘Look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near”‘ (Luke 21:28). This kindling of
    the light of hope is what is really new; it is the really
    surprising element in the biblical miracle stories.
    Nevertheless, these stories are only one element of
    the biblical witness to the history of Immanuel, even
    though, as such, they are admittedly indispensable and
    not to be overlooked. This history by no means exhausts
    itself in the fact that such stories occur within it. What
    is revealed in them is only the history’s newness and the
    complete consolation it brings. This history is the indication of a new heaven and a new earth. These stories are
    only the signs of the new element that has its origin
    in this history, which continues to hurry forward toward
    its goal ; they are not this new element itself. The new
    event, therefore, is not the water that was turned into
    wine at the marriage in Cana, or the young man who
    was restored to his weeping mother at Nain, or the food
    given to the five thousand in the wilderness, or the Sea
    of Galilee that so suddenly became calm, or the virginity of the mother of Jesus, or even his tomb that was
    found empty in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea.
    None of these is that new event which makes real and
    serious astonishment inevitable for anyone who takes
    up the study of theology. All those things could cause
    astonished frowns in the godless as well. The wonderment aroused by these signs, although it directs man’s
    attention to another and better nature and world, would
    still not preclude the possibility of overlooking the really
    and decisively new event of which the biblical witness speaks. What is really and decisively new is the new
    man.
    According to the biblical witness, Jesus acted by these
    miraculous deeds in the midst of other men as the Lord,
    servant, and guarantor for them all. In these deeds he
    proclaimed both himself and the righteousness and
    judgment of God. In them he revealed his glory. He himself is the new event, the great light of hope that has
    already come and will come again after having shined
    provisionally in these little lights. The new event is the
    world’s reconciliation with God, which was announced
    in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament by Jesus Christ. The new event is the fulfilling
    and perfecting of the covenant between God and man.
    The new event is love, free grace, the unfathomable
    mercy with which God took up the cause of Israel, the
    criminal contender against God, and the cause of the
    whole rebellious and corrupted human race. He took up
    their cause by letting his Word become flesh, miserable
    and sinful flesh of sin like our own. The execution of his
    eternal counsel took place in a concrete act within time
    and space, not on the lofty pinnacle of some idea that
    might be easily comprehensible and persuasive for man.
    The Word became flesh in our place and for us, to overcome, take away, and eradicate the sin that separates us
    from God, the sin that is also the sting of death, the old
    element of our old nature and world. The new event is
    the name of God which is hallowed in this one person,
    in his obedience, service, life, and death. It is the kingdom come in him, established and active in him, God’s
    will that in him is done on earth as in heaven. The new
    event is the pathway of children to their father, the way
    opened through him to all men and traversable for them
    all through the power of life of the Holy Spirit.
    The new event, according to the biblical witness, is
    the history of Jesus Christ that concludes the history of Israel. Christ the Saviour is there ! In a real and
    decisive sense, therefore, he is the miracle, the miracle
    of all miracles ! Whoever takes up the subject of theology finds himself inevitably confronted with this
    miracle. Christ is that infinitely wondrous event which
    compels a person, so far as he experiences and comprehends this event, to be’necessarily, profoundly, wholly,
    and irrevocably astonished.
    The astonishment of the individual carries with it
    the fact that no one can become and remain a theologian
    unless he is compelled again and again to be astonished
    at himself. Last but not least, he must become for himself an enigma and a mystery. (Nota bene: the same applies even to those who are taking a minor in theology
    or who will always remain amateur theologians.) After
    all, who am I to be a theologian? It does not matter
    whether I am the best child of the best parents, perhaps
    having known, like Timothy (II Tim. 3:15), about the
    Holy Scriptures from the very time I began to think. It
    does not matter whether I have the cleverest mind or the
    most upright heart or the very best of intentions. Who
    am I to have put such trust in myself as to devote
    myself even remotely to the task of theology? Who
    am I to co-operate in this subject, at least potentially
    and perhaps quite actively, as a minor researcher,
    thinker, or teacher? Who am I to take up the quest
    for truth in the service and in the sense of the community, and to take pains to complete this quest? I have
    put such trust in myself as soon as I touch theology
    with even my little finger, not to speak of occupying
    myself with it more or less energetically or perhaps
    even professionally. And if I have done that, I have
    without fail become concerned with the new event and
    the miracle attested to by the Bible. This miracle involves
    far more than just the young man at Nain or the captain
    of Capernaum and their companions of whom the Gospels tell ; far more than the Israelites’ passage through the
    Red Sea, the wilderness, and the Jordan; far more than
    the sun that stood still upon Joshua’s command at Gibeon.
    I have become involved in the reality of God that is only
    signaled by all these things. This is the God of Abraham,
    Isaac, and Jacob, who reveals himself in his Son through
    the Holy Spirit, who desired to be the God of man so
    that man might live as his man. I have become involved
    in the wonder of this God, together with all its consequences for the world and for each and every man. And
    whatever, however, and whoever I may be in other respects, I have finally and profoundly become a man
    made to wonder at himself by this wonder of God. It is
    another question whether I know what self-wonderment
    means for me, whether I am ready and able to subordinate my bit of research, thought, and speech to the logic
    of this wonder (and not in reverse order!). But there
    can be no question about one fact : I find myself confronted by the wondrous reality of the living God. This
    confrontation occurs in even the most timid and untalented attempt to take seriously the subject in which
    I have become involved or to work theologically at all,
    whether in the field of exegesis, Church history, dogmatics, or ethics.
    In one way or another I am obliged to consider the
    question of the wonder of God. I may perhaps attempt
    to steal away from the confrontation and preoccupation
    with this wonder. But I can no longer be released from
    this confrontation. Theology undoubtedly gives the man
    who is concerned with it something like a character in-
    delebilis, an indelible quality. Whoever has eyes to see
    will recognize even at a distance the man who has been
    afflicted and irreparably wounded by theology and the
    Word of God. He will be recognizable by a certain earnestness and humor, whether genuine or spurious, real
    or only pretended. But the process and the way in which it was possible for him to become such a man will always
    be hidden, even from the theologian himself. This process
    will remain a deeply wondrous enigma and mystery. I no
    doubt know and recognize myself quite passably in all
    my other opinions and inclinations, in all my other real
    or fancied or desired possibilities. By birth and nature
    we are indeed all rationalists, empiricists, or romanticists
    in some sort of mixture, and we have no occasion to be
    astonished at ourselves in this respect. All that is simply
    a fact. But I become, am, and remain something unknown, a different person, a stranger, when I am counted
    worthy to be permitted and required to wonder with
    respect to the wonder of God. And this is what happens
    when I become concerned with theology. How could my
    existence with this permission and demand to wonder
    ever become an everyday, familiar, and trite fact? How
    could this attribute of my existence ever become transparent to me?
    To become and be a theologian is not a natural process
    but an incomparably concrete fact of grace. This is so,
    precisely from the viewpoint of the radical and fundamental astonishment in which alone a man can become
    and be a theologian. While looking only at himself, a
    man can not recognize himself as a recipient of grace,
    and consequently he cannot take pleasure and pride in
    himself. As the recipient of grace, a man can only become active in gratitude. If anyone supposed he could
    understand himself as such a receiver of grace, he would
    do better to bid theology farewell and devote himself to
    some other sort of activity. There he might shut his
    eyes to the wonder of God (if he can) and would also
    not need to wonder at himself (if he is able). But perhaps he will find no other activity in which he might
    effectively and definitively elude theology, the wonder of
    God, and, consequently, his astonishment at this wonder
    and at himself.
    Wonderment? If this concept is to be an adequate description of what makes the theologian a theologian, it
    immediately requires concrete delimitation and deepening. Even in the expanded interpretation we have
    given it, “wonder” could still be misunderstood as mere
    “admiration.”
    Admiration is something with considerable and perhaps promising theological significance. Johann Gottfried Herder once read and interpreted the Bible with
    admiration as a document of ancient Oriental poetry,
    and after long decades of a thoroughly and enlightenment, such a view of the Bible was for many a stimulating and exciting possibility. The young Schleiermacher,
    in his turn, summoned the cultured despisers of religion
    to admiration of the phenomenon of religion in general.
    A century later, what intensely interested us youths of
    that day in the works of Duhm or Gunkel was their admiration for at least the prophets and psalms, at any
    rate, as the high point of the world of the Old Testament.
    Paul Wernle was regarded by his students as an unforgettable teacher because of his admiration (following in
    the footsteps of Thomas Carlyle) for the human person
    of Jesus as well as (with a few reservations) for the
    apostle Paul, the Reformers, and a throng of figures
    from Church history who appealed to him. And Rudolf
    Otto also was able to describe to us quite impressively
    the “Holy” as a fascinosum. No doubt more was involved in all this than “admiration” alone. There was a
    certain justification for the fact that the concept of “experience,” brought to vogue by Wilhelm Herrmann and
    others, was in all our mouths about 1910 and already
    pointed beyond mere admiration. But at all events, the ology cannot and may not in any case remain content
    with mere admiration if it is to be a serious affair.
    What we termed in the previous lecture the inevitable
    wonderment of theology dare not be understood as but
    a species of intellectual sensibility. This would hold
    true even if its theme-transcending the aforementioned
    line of modern Protestant theology-were not merely
    the wonder of religious personalities or religious life
    and conduct but the wonder of God himself. Of course,
    as Anselm of Canterbury knew, since there is a beauty
    of God there is also a pulchritudo of theology which
    cannot be ignored. But theological observation of God
    cannot be a genial and detached survey. Theology cannot be an easygoing (or even interested and perhaps
    fascinated) contemplation of an object. For in the last
    analysis the attitude of the more or less enraptured subject toward this object might remain indifferent or skeptical, if not spiteful. If this object allowed its beholder
    to protect himself behind a fence of reservations, it
    would not at all be the wonder of God of which we spoke.
    When this object arouses wonderment of the type we
    have described, transforming the man whom it involves
    into an astonished subject, this man also becomes concerned. This is the further determination of theological
    existence which must now especially occupy our attention.
    When a man becomes involved in theological science,
    its object does not allow him to set himself apart from
    it or to claim independence and autarchic self-sufficiency.
    He has become involved in theology, even if his reasons
    for such involvement may have been very superficial, or,
    indeed, utterly childish. Certainly, he never knew beforehand what a risk he was taking, and he will certainly
    never fully grasp this risk. But at any rate he has taken
    this step. He is a theologian because he finds himself confronted by this object. His heart is much too stubborn and fearful, and his little head much too weak,
    but he cannot merely dally or skirmish with this object.
    The consequences can no longer be avoided. This object
    disturbs him-and not merely from afar, the way a
    lightning flash on the horizon might disturb one. This
    object seeks him out and finds him precisely where
    he stands, and it is just there that this object has
    already sought and found him. It met, encountered,
    and challenged him. It invaded, surprised, and captured
    him. It assumed control over him. As to himself, the
    light “dawned” on him, and he was ushered up from the
    audience to the stage. What he is supposed to do with
    this object has become wholly subordinate to the other
    question about how he must act now that this object obviously intended to have, and already has had, something
    to do with him. Before he knows anything at all, he finds
    himself known and consequently aroused and summoned to knowledge. He is summoned to re-search because he finds himself searched, to thinking and reflection because he becomes aware that someone thinks of
    him, to speech because he hears someone speak to him
    long before he can even stammer, much less utter a coherent sentence. In short, he finds himself freed to be
    concerned with this object long before he can even reflect
    on the fact that there is such a freedom, and before he
    has made even an initial, hesitant, and unskilled use of it.
    He did not take part in this liberation, but what happened was that he was made a direct participant in this
    freedom. When he dipped even the tip of his toe into
    the waters of this Rubicon or Jordan (or whatever the
    river may be called), he was already both compelled and
    allowed to pass through to the other side. Perhaps
    frowning, confused and shocked, and definitely altogether incompetent, he is all the same on the other
    shore from which there is no return. The fact is now:
    Tua res agitur, the matter concerns you !
    What am I describing? The genesis and existence of a
    prophet? No, but simply the entirely peculiar character
    of the theologian’s origin and life. The genesis and existence of some great theologian? Nonsense-because what
    can “great” mean? There may be great lawyers, doctors,
    natural scientists, historians, and philosophers. But there
    are none other than little theologians, a fact that, incidentally, is fundamental to the “existentials” of theology.
    Even he who is little in the field of theology is overwhelmed by this object. No one is concerned with this
    science, even at the most remote sphere of his activity or
    even as a clumsy dilettante, over whom this object does
    not irresistibly gain the upper hand. While not possessing it at all, no man is confronted by this object who is
    not possessed by it. The theologian for his part becomes,
    whether willingly or unwillingly, consciously or unwittingly, quite definitely not only a fascinated but also
    a concerned man.
    Tua res agitur! You are concerned ! What does “you”
    mean? We shall attempt to give three answers that once
    again are related to one another like three concentric
    circles. All represent basically a single answer, yet each
    of them has its own weight in its own place and manner.
18. Theological existence, like the existence of every
    human being, is existence in the present epoch of the
    cosmos. It occupies a specific fraction of the secular
    time that has not yet come to its end. It is like a ring
    in the chain of the ever continuing generations of the
    human race, a ring that today is strained and tested for
    its durability. It lives and perseveres in its own situation
    as an active and passive subject of the history of man
    and society. The little theologian likewise exists, in common with all other men, as a creature allotted his particular possibilities by his cosmic situation and determination. In his environment he is harassed by his own
    special needs, but in one way or another he has also a share in special tasks and hopes. Though his special
    situation affords him no advantage, he has also no disadvantage in comparison with all the others ; he is
    neither mightier nor weaker than they. But he is confronted with the Word of God expressed and audible in
    God’s work, and it is this which he cannot suppress.
    Wittingly or unwittingly, as a theologian he has exposed himself to this Word. He, at any rate, cannot possibly hide from himself the fact that this Word is directed precisely to his own world. This Word concerns
    mankind in all times and places, the theologian in his
    own time and place, and the world in its occupation with
    the routine problems of the everyday. This Word challenges the world in which X, Y, and Z appear-with
    their own big words-to have the say and to determine
    the lot of all men and things as well as the lot of theologians. While the theologian reads the newspaper, he cannot forget that he has just read Isaiah 40 or John 1 or
    Romans 8. He, at any rate, cannot suppress the knowledge that the Word of God speaks not only of an infinitely deeper need but also of an infinitely higher
    promise than the sum total of all the needs and promises
    characteristic of his time and place. He cannot suppress
    his awareness that this Word is not only the word of
    God’s verdict and judgment upon all human existence
    and its perversion, but much more the word of God’s
    gracious covenant with man. He knows that this covenant is not only planned but already established and
    fulfilled. The Word to which he is exposed treats of
    man’s completed reconciliation with God. It speaks of
    the righteousness by which all human unrighteousness
    is already overcome, of the peace that has made all
    human wars (whether cold or hot) already superfluous
    and impossible, of the order by which a limit has already
    been set to all human disorder.
    And last of all, the man encountered by the Word cannot ignore the fact that, along with all time, his
    present time moves toward a goal where all that is now
    hidden will be revealed. He knows that this time was
    and is the time of Jesus Christ and therefore-in spite
    of every apparent contradiction-a time of grace.
    The fact cannot escape him that what is involved in the
    Word is not the proclamation of some sort of principle,
    a new moral and political program, or a better ideology.
    But what is involved and meant by that Word is rather
    and immediately the woe and the salvation which are
    eternal and thus also temporal, heavenly and for this
    reason also earthly, coming and therefore already present. By that Word are expressed and declared : woe and
    salvation to the Europeans and the Asians, the Americans and the Africans, woe and salvation to the poor
    rigid Communists and woe and salvation to the still
    poorer (because still more rigid) anti-Communists, woe
    and salvation to us Swiss as well, to our self-righteousness which is exceeded only by our business acumen, our
    profound anxiety, our milk and watches, our tourist
    trade, our narrow-minded rejection of voting rights for
    women, and our somewhat childish desire for a few
    choice atomic weapons.
    The content of God’s Word is his free, undeserved Yes
    to the whole human race, in spite of all human unreasonableness and corruption. And the theologian cannot by-pass this Word, even if everyone else among his
    all too self-satisfied and all too troubled fellow creatures
    tried perhaps to by-pass it. In this attempt to dodge the
    Word, they will not succeed. A theologian is he who has
    once and for all been compelled and permitted to face
    and accept, in an especially concrete manner (possibly
    even professionally), the challenge of the Word of God.
    This Word cannot possibly do otherwise than examine,
    involve, and concern him, piercing him to the heart
    (Acts 2:37) -even him who exists as a present-day man in the present world, his share of the burdens of the
    present generation. How else should he actually exist
    in the world (whatever the practical consequences may
    be) than as one who is involved, concerned, and really
    pierced through the heart by this Word?
19. All the same, theological existence does not swim
    alone in this world’s seas, drifting with the waves or
    battling against them. It is not only shared with other
    human beings; it is also Christian existence inasmuch
    as it is existence in the community, called together and
    sustained by the witness of the Old and New Testaments
    to the Word of God.
    No one can be a theologian without at some point
    participating totally in the problematic aspects of Christianity. The theologian participates in the life of Christianity, which is always threatened by destruction, although again and again rescued from it. He participates
    in its partially necessary and partially accidental, but
    mainly self-incurred, isolation from those sections of
    humanity which do not belong to it, and from the spiritual, psychical, and physical powers that rule mankind.
    He participates also in its fortunate or less fortunate
    attempts to break out of this isolation. He shares the
    limited respect theology sometimes receives, as well as
    the sad disrespect and often worse adulation that are
    accorded it. He participates in its schisms and in its
    longing for unity, in its obedience as well as in its indifference, and finally in its lassitude, which often masquerades as busyness. He is a Christian while he is a
    member, perhaps, of a state church, or of a free church,
    or as a Lutheran or Reformed or Methodist or Roman
    Catholic. Perhaps he takes pleasure in the old-time religion, or in religious progress, or in the social or aesthetic
    assimilation achieved by the special brand of his own
    Christianity. Christianity admittedly exists in such
    sheer particularities. To a large extent, this may appear at first glance to be justifiable; but the fact is notorious
    that, in many respects, it cannot be justified.
    This is the way each theologian exists in his place.
    However, wherever he may be situated and whatever
    stand he may take, in the last analysis, he can not really
    exist in such particularity or feel himself ultimately at
    home with them. Regardless of where and how he may
    stand, the quest for truth has been assigned to him as a
    member of the people chosen by the truth itself and
    called through its revelation. Whether he knew what he
    was doing or not, he has taken up the task of reflecting
    on the question about truth. This was the question posed
    for that people from the very beginning and in all its
    subsequent historical forms. Regardless of how this
    people may fare or what position it may take, it stands
    and falls by the answer to this question. Compared with
    the question about truth, all the special problems of this
    people can be only child’s play. Nevertheless, when seen
    in the piercing light of that question, even the minutest
    problem about the community’s service, order, or proclamation can receive ultimate and greatest weight. Everything that happens or does not happen in the life of this
    people directly concerns the theologian ; whether it happens in one way or another, well or ill, it becomes inexorably his concern. And this occurs in such a way
    that he may neither overestimate nor underestimate
    anything, neither take anything too lightly nor count
    anything too tragic. He cannot cease to think along with
    this community and, in certain circumstances, also to
    speak, in both respects quite sharply but also quite
    cheerfully on major or minor points. He does this not
    because he is personally such an important or even
    sovereign and versatile man. He does this simply because the one Word of the one sovereign Lord of all
    Christianity has so pursued him that he cannot evade
    the vision of the one thing by which alone the people of God can and may live. The one Lord over all the forms
    and predicaments of Christianity has so frontally attacked him-the “little” theologian-regarding his function within the community, that he cannot shake off this
    one thing-not even in his sleep, much less in the supposed or real strengths and weaknesses, heights, and
    depths of his life. The judgment pronounced upon the
    community by this Word falls upon him as well ; however, he is also uplifted by the promise which is given
    the community and sealed by the fact that it may live
    from this Word.
20. Theological existence is exclusively the personal
    existence of the “little” theologian. He exists not only in
    the world and not only in the community but also simply
    by himself. And since the Word of God, which is the object of theology, is concerned with the world and the
    community in the world, it is concerned also with the
    theologian in his existence for himself. What is involved
    is the judgment which falls upon him and the grace
    which is granted him, his imprisonment and liberation,
    his death and his life. What is involved is, finally and
    conclusively, he himself in everything which he as a
    theologian must know, investigate, and consider concerning the quest for truth. It would not, however, be
    fitting to suppose that what is involved is first and foremost he himself, and then only subsequently and at a
    certain remove the community, and finally, at a still
    greater distance, the world. Such a sequence might
    suggest that subjectivity was the truth (according to
    the statement of Kierkegaard, which is at the very
    least open to misunderstanding). If the community and
    the world were not involved, he himself could not be
    involved. For only in the community and the world is he
    the one who he is; and just because the community and
    the world are involved, he, too, is finally and conclusively involved.
    What is implied by the relationship between God’s
    covenant of grace and the human race is the theologian’s
    election, justification, sanctification, and calling. His
    prayer and work are included, his joy and sorrow, himself in his relation to his neighbor, the unique opportunity of his short life, his stewardship with the capabilities and possibilities given to him, his relation to
    money and possessions, to the opposite sex (in marriage
    and in every encounter), to his parents and children, to
    the morality and immorality of his environment. In
    the last analysis, he is the one who is concerned, questioned, and accused by God’s Word ; judged and justified,
    comforted and admonished, not only in his function and
    role among his fellow men, but also personally in his existence for himself. He himself is the one whom God
    makes an “I” by addressing him as a “Thou.”
    The story is told that the once famous Professor
    Tholuck of Halle used to visit the rooms of his students
    and press them with the question, “Brother, how are
    things in your heart?” How do things stand with you
    yourself ?-not with your ears, not with your head, not
    with your forensic ability, not with your industriousness (although all that is also appropriate to being a
    theologian). In biblical terms the question is precisely,
    “How are things with your heart?” It is a question very
    properly addressed to every young and old theologian !
    The question might also read : “Adam, where are
    you?” Are you perhaps-in your interior and exterior
    private life-fleeing from the One with whom you as a
    theologian are pre-eminently concerned? Have you hidden yourself from him in the shrubbery of your more or
    less profound or high-flown contemplation, explication,
    meditation, and application? Are you perhaps living in a
    private world which is like a snail’s shell, considering
    yourself deeply and invisibly hidden beneath and behind
    all externals, while on closer view your life might prove to be that of an unenlightened, unconverted, and uncontrollably corrupted and savage little bourgeois or
    gypsy? But this “perhaps” is impossible! Let no one
    think that on such a basis he would be capable of any
    properly free and fruitful theological inquiry, thought,
    and speech ! There is no avoiding the fact that the living
    object of theology concerns the whole man. It concerns
    even what is most private in the private life of the theologian. Even in this sphere the theologian cannot and
    will not flee this object. If this situation should not suit
    him, he might, of course, prefer to choose another and
    less dangerous discipline than theology. But he should
    be aware that it is characteristic for the object of theology to seek out every man in every place sooner or
    later (see Psalm 139). It will seek him out wherever he
    may be and pose to him the same question. Therefore, it
    would probably be simpler to remain a theologian and
    learn to live with God’s claim upon even the most intimate realms of the theologian’s humanity.
    In our sixth lecture we isolated “wonderment” as the
    first element that makes the theologian a theologian. We
    meant wonderment before the unprecedented newness of
    the object of theology. We described “concern” as a
    second element in our seventh lecture. Concern is
    inevitable because of the unique actuality, indeed aggressiveness, of the object with which man becomes involved
    in theology. But this object also demands that involvement cannot stop simply at the point of even the greatest
    concern (or of “the deepest experience,” as would have
    been said fifty years ago). When this object concerns
    man in its peculiarly penetrating and intimate way, it
    desires something special not only for him but also from
    him. It encourages him, it sets him on his feet, and it
    frees him, but it also claims him and tells him to walk
    and make use of the freedom that has been granted him.
    The event of “commitment” is the third element that
    makes the theologian a theologian.
    It is splendid and beautiful to be assigned a duty by
    the God of the Gospel who is the object of evangelical
    theology, but it is also demanding, exalting, and finally
    terrifying. A nobile officium, a noble charge, is confided
    and entrusted to man ; but this charge implies that he is
    expected to fulfill his ministry. He is privileged to do
    what is expected of him. But he also must do what he is
    chosen to do.
    Since the concern which claims the theologian even in
    his private life is total, his commitment is also total.
    Commitment begins with the theologian’s wonder and
    is directly related to his concern. It comprehends, indeed, his whole existence.
    The theologian’s existence clearly involves a respon sibility imposed by his special function. His existence is
    endowed with a special freedom and called to a special
    exercise of this freedom. What interests us is the degree
    to which the theologian is rendered responsible within
    his science by its object. He is freed and claimed for a
    specific kind of perception, inquiry, thought, and speech.
    He has not devised and chosen this mode of perception
    himself; rather, it was forced upon him when he took
    up the task of theology. If he desires to be and remain
    faithful to that task, he must appropriate its way of
    thought, practicing it steadfastly and remembering or
    letting himself be reminded of it continually. What is
    involved is the method peculiar to theology. The word
    “method,” though burdensome, is unavoidable in the
    sense of defining a procedural regimen which corresponds to the task of theology. Expressed in other terms,
    what is involved is the law according to which the theologian must proceed. By such a law the theologian is
    bound, beyond all mere wonderment and concern, to
    knowledge and confession of his proper object.
    Neither the word “method” nor the word “law” is to
    be understood as a burden laid upon the theologian, a
    prison regulation hindering him or, in short, a compulsion placed upon him. What is involved is the method
    or law of freedom by which he must inquire, think, and
    speak. His commitment can only be a compulsion for
    him if he has not yet dedicated himself consciously and
    determinedly to, or for some reason or other has deserted, the object of his science. When dedicated to the
    Word and work of God, he exists as a free man precisely
    because of the respect he pays to the method and law of
    his science. The only burden, compulsion, and Babylonian captivity would be for him the necessity of pursuing another method, or respecting and fulfilling an alien
    law of knowledge-however, just such an alien law is what he has left behind when he sets out on the path of
    the intellectus fidei.
    We must now briefly draw some conclusions about the
    regulation of the intellectus, about the type of knowledge to which the theologian is bound, freed, and summoned. We will reserve for the next lecture the problem
    posed by the fact that this is the intellectus fidei, the
    understanding of faith, and not simply the intellectus
    independent of fides. At this juncture, however, we
    will only inquire into the character of the intellectus.
    Here, three points must be set forth and confirmed.
21. The work and word of God which form the object
    of theology are a unity. It should not be forgotten, of
    course, what was said in our second and third lectures,
    that his is no monolithic work and no monotonous word.
    Rather, this unity is the work of the living God-a
    unity of rich and diverse forms, all of which are evident
    in the witness of Scriptures. Heights and depths, things
    great and small, near and remote, special and universal,
    internal and external, visible and invisible, are all enclosed within the reality and revelation of God’s covenant with man. One beholds in Scriptures God’s eternal
    being within himself and his being in time for us, his
    election and rejection, his mercy and judgment, his action as creator, reconciler, and redeemer, in effect, his
    heavenly and his earthly politics; and one also beholds
    God’s creature-good, fallen, and renewed after God’s
    image, replete with the nature appointed him and the
    grace granted him, his transgression and obedience, his
    deserved death and promised life. And in all this there
    is also past, present, and future.
    All these exist together : the one not without the many
    and the center not without its infinite circumference, although no one point of the circumference is identical or
    interchangeable with any other. None is insignificant,
    unimportant, or dispensable ; none is without its special truth and worth. There is none that does not represent
    and reflect the whole; and there is none concerning
    which, proper or improper knowledge might not have
    crucial consequences. But there is also none that is able
    to step outside of the unity of the work and word of
    God which surround and determine it. None may be
    observed, understood, and interpreted in isolation for
    its own sake, being treated as a secondary focus, perhaps even being made the center itself. The object of
    theological science in all its disciplines is the work and
    word of God in their fullness, but in their fullness they
    are also the one work and word of God. This work and
    word are Jesus Christ, the one who was crowned as king
    of the Jews and Saviour of the world, who represents the
    one God among men and man before the one God. He is
    the one servant and Lord who was expected, who arrived, and is now truly expected. Oriented to him who
    is its starting point and its goal, theological knowledge
    becomes a knowledge that articulates the unity of the
    manifold
    The intellectus fidei is engaged in gathering, although
    it abstains from equalizing, stereotyping, or identifying.
    While it gives every point of the circumference its special due, it brings together all parts from their own
    individual centers to their common center. Theology
    finds itself committed, freed, and summoned to such
    knowledge. In the theological act of knowledge, seeing
    is doubtless an attentive and exact gaze toward one or
    another special form of the object; as such, it is also
    sight that views one form together with the others.
    What is decisive is that it is an insight into the one
    object which presents itself now in this, now in that,
    form, or an insight into one peculiar form which has
    become a form of the one object. In the act of theological
    knowledge, every view, insight, and vision is attentively
    and accurately concentrated upon this or that form. But also a syn-opsis, a seeing together of different forms,
    takes place. And finally, and above all, each form is
    discovered to be a form of the one object. This is the
    sense of biblical exegesis, as well as of the stocktaking
    and analysis known as Church history, or the history of
    dogmatics and theology. It is likewise the sense of the
    different loci, chapters, and paragraphs of dogmatics
    and ethics, as well as of the consideration of the many
    practical tasks of the Church.
    The formation of a system will always be made in
    passing only; it will remain rudimentary and fragmentary. The difference between the times and situations in
    which the theological act of knowledge is carried out
    opposes any thoroughgoing and consistent systematization. Systematization is further opposed by the great
    variety of the forms and aspects of the single object of
    theology. And, above all, a system is opposed by the fact
    that the theological center which comprehends and
    displays its manifold individual aspects is no blueprint available for the asking. It is, instead, Jesus Christ
    who, by the potency of the Holy Spirit, is risen, powerful,
    and speaking. It is the continuously novel binding and
    liberating goodness of the living God who comes down
    to man and draws man up to himself in a history that
    is always freshly in motion. He reigns, and beside him
    there is no other ruler. There is no systematic power
    behind the throne. And he is also the one who impedes
    the appearance of any stagnant nooks in which philosophical or “historical” thought and speech might
    sometime become possible or even required. He does not
    allow the theologian to overlook even one point of the
    circumference; to let any one point stand in some sort of
    isolation ; or to shun thinking it through earnestly and
    honestly, i.e., theologically. But he also does not allow
    the theologian to mistake any one point for the center
    itself, or to create an epicenter competing with the pri mary center, or to fashion an ellipse out of the circle and
    in this way succumb to sectarianism, heresy, or perhaps
    even apostasy. “Everything is yours,” but “He who
    does not gather with me scatters.” One of the first
    criteria of genuine theological knowledge of the intellectus fidei is that it gathers “with him.” It is a knowledge that gathers all thoughts, concepts, and words to
    him as their beginning and goal.
22. The object of theology, which is the God of the
    Gospel in his work and word, is related to the knowledge
    of God in the same way that God is related to man, the
    Creator to his creature, and the Lord to his servant. He
    is in every respect the one who comes first. The knowledge of him can only follow and be subordinated and
    accommodated to him. He commits, frees, and summons
    the theologian to notice, consider, and speak of him.
    The theologian cannot espouse the cause of any a priori
    that would take precedence over him. According to the
    rule of Hilary, Non sermoni res, sed rei sermo subjectus
    est (The thing is not subject to the word, but the
    word is subject to the thing). Or, as the same idea is
    expressed in Anselm’s terms, the ratio and the necessitas
    of theological knowledge must be directed by the ratio
    and the necessitas of its object. This relationship may
    not be reversed ! Naturally, as a human science, theology
    constantly and universally employs the viewpoints, concepts, images, and linguistic media that have been
    handed down or have newly arisen in its time and situation. In this respect it is no different from any other
    human science. Its knowledge was won in different ways
    during the last days of antiquity, in the Middle Ages, in
    the era of the baroque, or during the Enlightenment, in
    idealism or romanticism. But there is no time or situation in which theology can allow itself to recognize some
    general regulation as a binding law for its viewpoints,
    conceptions, images, and speech. And by no means may theology let itself be bound by any such regulation that
    rules or desires to rule at the present. It makes no difference whether this regulation is proclaimed in the name of
    Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, or Heidegger.
    One reason theology cannot recognize such a law is
    that a specific philosophy and world view usually stand
    behind every such regulation. Theology would necessarily have to tolerate such conceptions, to the detriment
    of the pursuance of its task. But the primary reason it
    cannot bow to such a regulation is that it is summoned
    and commissioned by its object for a sight, thought, and
    speech that are open and flexible on all sides. It is unconditionally bound to its object alone.
    On the other hand, why should theology not also
    employ current ideas, concepts, images, and expressions?
    As long as these prove themselves suitable, why could
    they not be “eclectically” used with the greatest confidence? Such a use definitely would not imply that theology would have to acknowledge as an authoritative
    precept for itself whatever, is in current usage. It must
    inquire into the logic, dialectic, and rhetoric that stem
    from its object, the divine Logos. It will have to risk
    going its own way straight through the domain of those
    other criteria which have to do with the ideas, thought,
    and speech that are considered at present to be generally
    valid or are more or less solemnly proclaimed abroad.
    Progress and improvement in theology are never to be
    expected from obsequious obedience to the spirit of the
    age; they can stem only from increased determination
    to pursue the law of theological knowledge itself, even
    when theologies are maintaining a cheerful openness
    toward the spirit of the times.
    We recall what was said in the first lecture about
    the character of theology as a free science. It preserves
    its freedom by making use of every human capacity
    for perception, judgment, and speech, without being bound to any presupposed epistemology. At this point
    it opposes not only the older orthodoxy but also every
    modern neo-orthodoxy. In its free and eclectic use of
    human capacities it pursues but one thing, that is, to
    render the obedience which is demanded of it by its
    object, the living God in the living Jesus Christ and in
    the Holy Spirit’s power of life. It is not called to irrationality, to lazy or fanciful thought, and certainly not
    to a perverse love of the paradoxical as such. Credo quia
    absurdum (I believe because it is absurd) would be the
    last thing to profit its object or to be permitted theology.
    On the contrary, the theologian cannot possess, maintain, and demonstrate enough reason. However, the
    object of his science has a way of its own for laying
    claim to his reason. This way is often familiar, but also
    often quite unfamiliar. This object is not bound to set
    its standards by the little theologian. The little theologian, however, is certainly committed to setting his
    standards by it. This priority of the object over its apperception is the second important criterion of genuine
    theological knowledge, the intellectus fidei.
23. The object of theology, the work and word of God
    in the history of Immanuel and its biblical testimony,
    has a definite propensity, a definite emphasis and tendency, an irreversible direction. The theologian is committed, freed, and summoned to give room to this emphasis in his knowledge, the intellectus fidei. There is a
    double aspect in God’s action and speech and, correspondingly, in the texts of the Old and New Testaments (which
    only apparently stand alongside one another with equal
    weight!). This double aspect may be signified as the
    divine Yes and No energetically spoken to man, or as
    the Gospel lifting man up and the Law setting him
    aright, as the grace directed to him and the condemnation threatening him, or as the life for which he has
    been saved and the death to which he is subjected. To be faithful to the Word of God and the scriptural testimony witnessing to that Word, the theologian must
    visualize, consider, and speak of both aspects, the light
    as well as the shadow. But with the same faithfulness
    he cannot mistake, deny, or conceal the fact that both
    of these moments are not related to one another like
    the movements of a pendulum, constantly repeated with
    equal force in opposite directions, or like balance scales
    equally weighted and indecisively oscillating. Their relationship, instead, is like a before and after, an above
    and a below, a more and a less. There is no mistaking
    the fact that here man is made to hear a sharp and overwhelming divine No. But there is also no mistaking
    the fact that this No is enclosed within God’s creative,
    reconciling, and redeeming Yes to man. The Law that
    binds man is certainly established and proclaimed here,
    but its divine validity and divinely binding power are
    due no less certainly to its character as the Law of the
    covenant and as a form of the Gospel. A condemnation
    is undoubtedly pronounced and executed at this juncture,
    but in this very condemnation reconciling grace is clearly
    displayed, as in the decisive execution of this condemnation on the Cross at Golgotha. Death appears here unmistakably as the final boundary of every human beginning
    and end, but man’s eternal life also unmistakably appears as the meaning and goal of his death.
    God’s Yes and No are not ambivalent. Gospel and Law
    do not possess a complementary character. There is no
    balance, rather there is the greatest imbalance. Just such
    superiority on the one hand and inferiority on the other
    are what theology must adequately express in the double
    aspect of God’s relation to man. Although it definitely
    may not reduce what God wills, does, and says to a
    triumphal Yes to man, it may also not let matters stand
    by a No that with equal authority and weight match
    God’s Yes. Any precedence of God’s No over his Yes (not to speak of a disappearance of his Yes in his No
    so that, in short, the light would be set in shadow instead
    of what is shadowy being brought into the light) is
    altogether out of the question. Romans 7 may neither
    explicitly nor implicitly become more familiar, important, and dear to the theologian than Romans 8, just as
    hell may not become more indispensable and interesting than heaven. Similarly, in Church history, to point
    out the sins, faults, and weaknesses of the scholastics
    and the mystics, Reformers and Papists, Lutherans and
    Reformed, rationalists and pietists, orthodox and liberals-even though these failings certainly dare not be
    overlooked or left unmentioned-cannot become a more
    urgent task than seeing and understanding them all in
    the light of the forgiveness of sins that is necessary and
    promised to us all. Lastly, the theologian may not be
    more agitated by the godlessness of the children of this
    world than by the sun of righteousness which has already arisen upon them as well as upon himself.
    In the first lecture we called theology a happy science.
    Why are there so many really woeful theologians who
    go around with faces that are eternally troubled or even
    embittered, always in a rush to bring forward their
    critical reservations and negations? The reason is their
    lack of respect for this third criterion of genuine theological knowledge. They do not respect the internal
    order of the theological object, the superiority of God’s
    Yes over his No, the Gospel over the Law, of grace over
    condemnation, and life over death, but instead they wish
    arbitrarily to transmute this into an equilibrium or even
    to reverse the relationship. No wonder they come into
    unhappy proximity to the older J. J. Rousseau or also to
    that pitiable man (whom Goethe memorialized in his
    Winter Trip Through the Harz) requesting comfort
    from the “Father of love.” A theologian may and should
    be a pleased or satisfied man, if not always on the sur face then all the same deep within. To be “satisfied” in
    the good old sense of this word means to have found
    sufficiency in something. As Paul Gerhardt says in one
    of his hymns : “Let this suffice you, and be still in the
    God of your life.” If anyone should not find it sufficient
    to be “in God,” what sufficiency would he find in the
    community or world? How could he exist as a theologian? The community knows from experience that it is
    a lost flock, but it does not know, or never knows adequately, that it is God’s beloved and chosen people, called
    as such to praise him. And the world knows from experience that it lies in the power of evil (no matter how
    much it may continually delude itself about its predicament). But it does not know that it is upheld on all sides
    by the helping hands of God. The theologian finds satis
    faction when his knowledge, the intellectus fidei, is directed by the thrust conveyed to him by the object of his
    science. In this way he becomes and remains a satisfied
    and pleased man, who also spreads satisfaction and
    pleasure throughout the community and world.
    In our answer to the question of what makes a man a
    theologian we have reached a point where a momentary
    pause is necessary. We must now look in quite a different
    direction in order properly to understand what we have
    said about this subject. There was no particular difficulty in making fairly comprehensible and clear what
    was involved in wonderment, concern, and commitment,
    those phenomena which are based on the object of theological science and which assault those who are occupied with this science. But can we make clear how
    this assault occurs? Can we make clear how someone,
    as a result, becomes, remains, and always newly again
    becomes such an astonished, concerned, and committed
    man? To do this we must first underscore one aspect of
    our discussion of commitment. Granted that the character of the knowledge to which the theologian is committed, freed, and summoned is indeed special. How,
    then, does it happen that someone becomes really and
    effectively committed to this knowledge and its very
    special direction? How does someone begin to move
    along the path shown him by the object of theological
    science? With this as a point of departure, a further
    question certainly can and must be posed in retrospect.
    How does someone become seriously concerned by this
    object, or how is he even filled with serious wonderment?
    What is the genesis of these phenomena?
    Obviously we now find ourselves in quite a similar
    situation (or basically no doubt the same one) as in our
    fifth lecture on the Spirit. There we were obliged to
    admit the lack of presuppositions for our earlier statements regarding the Word of God, its biblical witnesses,
    and the community founded by those witnesses. Now, once again, we confront a discontinuity which is rooted
    in the matter itself. We can neither overlook nor make
    light of this discontinuity, nor can we attempt to do
    away with it by argumentation, least of all by bringing
    in some sort of Deus ex machina. Nothing here can be
    presupposed ! Just as before, all that can be required
    (and allowed) is the indication of a factor which cannot be built into any system. Just as before, we must
    meditate on the free Spirit as the mystery of the Word
    of God which was heard and attested to by the prophets
    and apostles and which founds, sustains, and rules the
    community. And also as before, we must renounce any
    systematic control, and point simply to an event which
    takes place in divine and human freedom. Although
    without presuppositions, inconceivable and inexplicable,
    this event is all the same describable. In it the object of
    theology claims, astonishes, concerns, and commits any
    given man in such a way that he can actually live,
    inquire, think, speak, and totally exist as a theologian.
    This event is faith, the little bit of faith of a definitely
    very little man.
    The first thing called for is, appropriately, a few delimitations of the concept of faith, so battered in older
    and especially in recent Protestantism.
    Firstly, faith would no doubt be a somewhat petty
    event, scarcely worth mentioning in this context, if what
    was meant by it was a human notion. Having reached
    the boundary of what he considers to be certain human
    knowledge, a man might allow room for a suspicion or
    opinion, the posing of a postulate, or the application of a
    calculus of probability. He might then equate the object
    of theology with what he suspects, postulates, or considers probable, and, in this sense, affirm the object. All this
    may, of course, be done, but such a man should not
    suppose that this is the faith by which he may become and remain a theologian. No one can merely think, suppose, or postulate the object which astonishes, concerns,
    and commits a man in the sense we have described.
    Faith in this object, therefore, is not hypothetical and
    problematic knowledge. It is quite basically a most intensive, strict, and certain knowledge. Compared with
    it, even what is supposedly the most certain knowledge
    on our side of the human boundary can only be esteemed
    a hypothesis-perhaps useful, but fundamentally beset
    by problems.
    Secondly, it would also be an inadequate faith if someone were to assent to certain propositions and doctrines
    relating to the object of theology by appropriating such
    formulations on the basis of their own authority. He
    might have encountered such formulations at second
    hand, perhaps through some major or minor witnesses
    to the Word of God whom he deems exemplary, or
    through the dogma and confession of the Church, or
    even through the Bible. He assumes that he himself
    knows what those others apparently knew (although in
    reality he does not know this at all). This is the procedure which Wilhelm Herrmann untiringly, irreconcilably, and (for his hearers) unforgettably pilloried at the
    beginning of our century as the most unpardonable of
    all sins. Certainly it is a wretched retreat from the
    quest for truth. Certainly such a decision and its fulfillment on the basis of blind faith smack of a sacrificium
    intellectus and not of fides quaerens intellectum, of disbelief and not of belief. Certainly fides implicita is a
    despicable concept of a despicable matter, which should
    never in any way have been adorned with the name of
    fides. Certainly a house of cards is constructed here in
    which no one would be well advised to take occupancy as
    a Christian and as a theologian.
    Another and third concept of faith, instead of being
    inadequate, is rather too magnificent and audacious. Indeed, someone might fancy that with his bit of faith he
    actually experienced and achieved a representation
    of the incarnation (with or without sacramental reassurances), or in a miniature version, of the faith of
    Jesus. He might suppose himself appointed and able
    to set divinity in motion in his life, or possibly to create
    it, according to the rule fides creatrix divinitatis in nobis
    (faith is the creator of divinity in us). Such presumptuous faith might befit a pious Hindu, mutatis mu-
    tandis, but it should not represent itself as Christian
    faith. Christian faith occurs in the encounter of the
    believer with him in whom he believes. It consists in
    communion, not in identification, with him.
    Fourthly, it was never a desirable tendency to exalt
    faith into an ontic and central concept, displacing the
    real object of theology, as though faith were the theme
    and the true event of salvation. This is what has happened to a wide extent in modern Protestantism, which
    excessively emphasizes the desire to understand and
    pursue theology as pisteology, the science and doctrine
    of Christian faith. The Bible and Church history are
    then searched exclusively and decisively for witnesses
    and, if possible, heroes of faith. Everything that might
    be worth considering with respect to God’s work and
    word is accepted only as a thought or expression of
    faith, or reinterpreted as such, and whatever does not
    seem to submit to this treatment, is excised either tacitly or with express disqualifications. As if the word
    credo, as such, were the real confession in the Credo of
    the Church ! As if man were called to believe and
    confess, not God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but
    the faith of the Church which expresses itself first in
    these high-flown words, and finally in his very own faith !
    (Unfortunately, there is also a Mozart mass, known as
    the Credo Mass, which might lead to this misunderstand ing, since its credo is penetratingly repeated throughout
    all three of its articles.)
    Faith is the conditio sine qua non, the indispensable
    condition of theological science, but not its object and
    theme. How could it ever be its central theme? The real
    object of theology certainly demands faith, but it also
    opposes any attempt to dissolve it into thoughts and expressions of faith. Whoever does not recognize this
    should not be surprised by the fruitless labor that theological endeavor must then have in store for him.
    Faith is the conditio sine qua non of theological
    science ! This is to say, faith is the event and history
    without which no one can become and be a Christian.
    Without this event a man may be characterized by all
    sorts of other worth-while capabilities and qualities, but
    he cannot become and be a theologian. Actually we have
    already spoken about this root of theological existence
    in the previous three lectures; however, we were only
    able to speak of wonder, concern, and commitment in
    the form of descriptions of an event.
    Faith is the special event that is constitutive for both
    Christian and theological existence. Faith is the event
    by which the wonderment, concern, and commitment
    that make the theologian a theologian are distinguished
    from all other occurrences which, in their own way,
    might be noteworthy and memorable or might be given
    the same designation.
    What happens in the event of faith is that the Word
    of God frees one man among many for faith itself.
    This is the motivation of faith ; something is “moved,”
    and something really “takes” place. By God’s Word,
    together with the life-giving power and the unique sovereignty of the Spirit, one man among many is permitted
    to exist continually as a free man. He is freed to affirm
    this Word as something not only thoroughly comforting and helpful, but also binding and indisputably valid for
    the world, the community, and finally for himself. He is
    freed to put his whole joyful trust in this Word and to
    become unreservedly obedient to what this announcement of God himself expresses about his love for the
    world, his people, and also for the theologian. No one
    can take such action by his own power. A man can do
    this only when he is overcome by God’s Word and its
    Spirit of power; when he is resurrected and recreated
    by it for such an act. But along with this origin in God’s
    free Word and the direction toward this Word, this
    act is genuinely and freely man’s own. The one who
    affirms, trusts, and obeys is not, as it were, God in him,
    but he himself, this little man. Also, the events of affirmation, trust, and obedience exclude the idea that man
    might be acting in some sort of enthusiastic delirium.
    No. He believes, receives, and follows God and his
    Word as a man, by the enlistment and use of his
    normal human understanding (although not leaving out
    his human fantasy!), his human will, and no doubt also
    his human feeling. But although humanly determined
    and limited, he does this as a free man, as a man who he
    was not but nevertheless became when encountered by
    God’s Word spoken in his work. Although strictly speaking he “is” not this man, he is allowed to become this
    man again and again when this object finds and confronts him anew, enabling and requiring him to affirm,
    trust, and obey itself. When that happens to someone,
    and when someone does that, he believes. And when this
    event, as such, is revelatory and this deed, as such, is enlightened, faith has the fundamental character of knowledge. As the intellectus fidei, it is knowledge of its object-that object which is the very origin of faith. From
    this origin and object, faith receives its concrete and
    distinctive content and is allowed to become knowledge
    of God and man, of the covenant of God with man, and of Jesus Christ. Certainly this is not only an intellectual knowledge, but what interests us here is that it
    is also knowledge executed in concepts and spoken in
    words. Faith is allowed to reoccur repeatedly when it is
    fides quaerens intellectum, faith laboring quite modestly,
    but not fruitlessly, in the quest for truth. This is the way,
    the object of theology lays claim to a man, allowing him
    to perceive, inquire, think, and even speak theologically.
    This process remains inconceivable and inexplicable
    (and here we think of what was said in the sixth lecture
    about the miracle of theological existence as such). But
    it is nevertheless capable of being described, since it
    involves the healing of one who was previously blind,
    deaf, and dumb, but who now sees, hears, and speaks.
    It remains for us now to observe a few special emphases:
24. The statement has often been made that one must
    believe in order to become and be a theologian. This expression is correct insofar as a person who is not freed
    for faith will not be able to hear, see, or speak theologically, but will only display a splendid triviality in every
    theological discipline. But to say that a person must believe would be inappropriate, since he can only really
    believe as a free believer, as one freed for faith. The
    same applies to Schiller’s statement, “You must believe,
    you must venture, for the gods give no guarantees.” Such
    a thoroughly heathen wisdom is inapplicable to Christian
    faith. First of all, faith is definitely no such venture as
    that which Satan, for instance, suggested to the Lord on
    the pinnacle of the temple (Luke 4:9-12). It is, instead, a
    sober as well as a brave appropriation of a firm and certain promise. Secondly, this appropriation definitely
    never occurs without the possession of a very real guarantee in the presence and action of the Spirit who, at
    least in the opinion of the Apostle Paul, frees man for
    faith. And finally, this act is not a necessity but a per mission granted man by God, consisting in the natural
    sequence and response by which man returns a bit of
    human gratitude for the grace shown him by God. Such
    faith is comparable to the natural development of a
    bud into a flower and the natural inclination of this
    flower toward the sun, or to the natural laughter of a
    child when he beholds something that gives him pleasure.
25. Faith is a history, new every morning. It is no state
    or attribute. It should not be confused with mere capacity and willingness to believe. Of course, it may result
    in and involve all sorts of faithfully held convictions,
    which had better be called the sum of some sort of “insight.” Faith might, indeed, include the insight, let us
    say, that the theologian would do well not to throw up
    his hands in disgust and hurriedly pass over to demythologizing procedures when he is confronted, for
    instance, by affirmations regarding Jesus’ birth from a
    virgin and his descent into hell, or by the resurrection
    of the flesh and the report of the empty tomb, or by the
    trinitarian dogma of Nicea and the Christological dogma
    of Chalcedon, and perhaps also by the incorporation of
    the Church into the profession of faith in the Holy
    Spirit. The theologian might, instead, do well to ask himself seriously whether he really believes-as he supposes
    he does-in the God of the Gospel when he thinks he
    can overlook, delete, or reinterpret these and similar
    points. It might be quite another God in whom he would
    then actually believe. All the same, willingness to
    believe all those and similar points is not yet faith.
    Faith is no credere quod, but rather a credere in, according to the unmistakable formulation of the Apostles’ Creed ; it is not a belief “that . . .” but a faith
    “in …”-in God himself, the God of the Gospel who is
    Father, Son, and Spirit. Whoever believes in him will
    hardly be able to avoid for any length of time the knowledge of many other points in addition to those we have cited. Yet faith is not a matter of being full of “belief” in and on such special issues. Instead, what is important is believing in him, God himself, the subject of all predicates. That is what may happen anew every morning fide quaerente intellectum, by the faith that seeks knowledge.
26. The criterion of the genuineness and enduring capacity of the faith which is indispensable to the theologian is not its special strength, depth, or fervor. It does not matter that this faith will, as a rule, be rather weak and delicate, fluttering in the windy currents of life and its accidents. If, according to the Gospel, a faith of as mean appearance as a mustard seed is sufficient to move a mountain, it will also be sufficient, not only to make possible, but also to set in motion a fruitful knowledge of God and the theological enterprise. A man is capable of knowledge and theological existence when, along with his bit of faith whose power in this affair avails to nothing, he remains directed and continually redirects himself toward the one in whom he may believe. He is a man free for this belief because he has been freed.
27. “I hear the message well enough, but what I lack is faith,” said Goethe’s Faust.’ Yes, indeed-who does not lack faith? Who can believe? Certainly no one would believe if he maintained that he “had” faith, so that nothing was lacking to him, and that he “could” believe. Whoever believes, knows and confesses that he cannot “by his own understanding and power”” in any way believe. He will simply perform this believing, without losing sight of the unbelief that continually accompanies him and makes itself felt. Called and illumined by the Holy Spirit as he is, he does not understand himself ; he cannot help but completely wonder at himself. He will say “I believe” only in and with the entreaty, “Lord,
    help my unbelief.” For this very reason he will not suppose that he has his faith, but he will hope and hope and
    hope for it as the Israelites hoped afresh every morning
    for the manna in the wilderness. And when he receives
    this faith afresh, he will also daily activate it anew. For
    this reason the question whether faith or the event of
    faith lies within anyone’s domain is a frivolous question.
    The event of faith lies in no one’s domain. The serious
    question, however, is whether anyone can allow himself to persist in the dreary assertion, “What I lack is
    faith,” once he has been shown that and how God’s
    work is done, God’s word is spoken, and God’s Spirit is
    operating in the word in which man lives. Or will he
    leave off all coquetry with his own unbelief and live in
    the freedom that has been revealed and granted to
    him? Will he be a man who is not only willing but is
    also able to take part in the intellectus fidei and theological science? Will he be a man who is really and effectively astonished, concerned, and committed by the living God-and who thus is fitted for this undertaking?
    As we approach this third sequence of reflections, a
    certain darkening of the scene is inevitable. The undertaking of theology is exposed, from its very beginning
    and in all its subsequent activities and ramifications, to
    great threat. An introduction to evangelical theology
    necessarily involves taking account of this danger ; it
    does so circumspectly and without unnecessary solemnity, but still with complete frankness. There is a good
    reason for the fact that our designation of theology as a
    “happy science” seems to stand in such great disharmony with the usual course of theological existence or, at
    any rate, seems not to be a self-evident attribute of
    theology. A great deal of theology has an uneasy, insecure, and troubled relationship to its subject; and it
    can hide its profound, if not bottomless, uneasiness only
    with difficulty and often with meager success. Naturally, this should not be the case; however, there is a
    cause for it, which lies not only in the personal failings of
    the theologian but even in the subject itself. Though this
    is a good and, properly understood, the best subject
    with which a man can concern himself, the fact cannot
    be denied or suppressed that involvement in theology is
    involvement in a difficult situation. The theologian’s
    difficulty is so great that we can thoroughly understand,
    even if we must regret, Faust’s complaint that,
    What must be spoken of now is the uncertainty which
    assails theology and the theologian-the very same theologian who, according to our earlier statements, is
    astonished, concerned, committed, and summoned to
    faith. This uncertainty is not absolute, but despite its relativity it is very penetrating. The several selected
    minor chords will no doubt pass over finally and conclusively into a subdued major key. Nevertheless, because there is no escaping this uncertainty, it must also
    be discussed.
    Whoever takes up the subject of theology discovers
    himself immediately, recurrently, and inevitably banished into a strange and notoriously oppressive solitude.
    In our old church hymnal we used to sing with emotion a song by Novalis containing the line, “Be content
    to let others wander in their broad, resplendent, teeming
    streets.” These words might sound very appropriate as
    a slogan for theology; however, they would not be altogether honest, for who at bottom would not really
    like to be an individual in a greater crowd? Who, as
    long as he is not the oddest of odd fellows, would not
    like to have his work supported by the direct or at least
    indirect acknowledgment and participation of the general public, and understood by all men or at least as
    many as possible? As a rule, the theologian will have
    to put up with pursuing his subject in a certain isolation, not only in the so-called “world,” but also in the
    Church (and behind a “Chinese wall,” as will soon
    enough be said). To make this clear, we need only consider how the venerabilis ordo Theologorum, the venerable order of divines, usually exists not only as the most
    delicate but also as the most spectacularly tiny department in most of our universities. At any rate, it ranks
    numerically as an outsider and is set in the shadows
    by its far more stately sisters. We might think, above
    all, of the especially pathetic figure of the pastor in his
    solitude-his solitary pathway and the uncanny isolation, which, due to the priestly halo which he is still
    thought to wear, continue to characterize him. He remains a stranger among all the men of his urban or
    rural community ; at best he may be surrounded by a small circle of those who feel particularly concerned.
    Scarcely anyone (with the exception of one or another
    colleague who is not geographically or doctrinally
    too remote from him) can offer him a helping hand
    in the labor demanded of him, in the explication and
    application of the biblical message, and in his own theological work.
    We might think of the relationship, strange even in
    a quantitative way, between what has to be said to human beings during the course of an hour in Church
    preaching and teaching (if they are willing and able
    to hear it) and what is brought home to them in an unbroken flood by the newspapers, radio, and television.
    And these are only symptoms of the isolation of the
    theological concern, task, and effort, an isolation that
    repeatedly breaks through all opposing interpretations,
    gestures, and endeavors (despite the ridiculous phrase
    about “the Church’s claim to free speech”). This isolation must be endured and borne, and it cannot always be
    easily borne with dignity and cheerfulness.
    Such isolation is hard to bear because fundamentally
    it seems not to correspond to the essence of theology.
    Indeed, to assume a theological post in some remote
    place from which the public is all but excluded seems
    strikingly to contradict the character of theology. Religion may be a private affair, but the woik and word
    of God are the reconciliation of the world with God, as
    it was performed in Jesus Christ. The object of theology,
    therefore, is the most radical change of the situation of
    all humanity; it is the revelation of this change which
    affects all men. In itself, revelation is undoubtedly the
    affair of the general public in the most comprehensive
    sense. What it has spoken into human ears demands
    proclamation from the housetops.
    Must it not be said, however, in the opposite direction,
    that the essential character of other human sciences does not equip them to consider theology simply as one among
    themselves? Can other sciences really keep theology separated from themselves, isolated in some corner like a
    merely tolerated Cinderella? Should not the object of
    theology be a prototype and pattern for the originality
    and authority of the objects that occupy the attention of
    all sciences? Should not general scientific thought and
    speech find a prototype and pattern in the primacy that
    theology grants to the rationale of its object above all the
    principles of its own human knowledge? Can the particularity of theology among all other sciences be understood
    except by the requirement made of theology : that it, at
    any rate, dare not fail at the point where other disciplines seem to fail? Can theology be called to do anything other than to offer itself as a stopgap for the
    other sciences? Is not all science, as such, basically called
    to be theology and to make the special science of theology
    superfluous? Should not the isolated existence of theology be understood as an abnormal fact when judged
    by the nature of theology, as well as by that of the other
    sciences? Must not even the peculiarity of theological
    existence, as such, be designated, both initially and ultimately, as an incongruous situation? Should not the
    attempt be understandable (at least as to its intention)
    which Paul Tillich has so impressively undertaken in
    our day : to integrate theology with the rest of the
    sciences or with culture itself as represented by philosophy and, vice versa, to set culture, philosophy, and other
    sciences in an indissoluble correlation with theology,
    according to the scheme of question and answer? Should
    not the duality of heteronomous and autonomous thinking be supplanted by the unity of theonomous thought?
    If only the philosopher, as such, wanted to be also a
    theologian ! If only, above all, the theologian, as such,
    wished to be also a philosopher ! According to Tillich, he should and can desire to be this. What solutions ! What prospects ! “Would that we were there!”‘
    This and similar attempts to do away with the solitude of theology cannot possibly, however, be carried to
    completion, for they are based on impossible presuppositions. Every such attempt supposes it can understand
    and comport itself as either paradisiac, or perfected, or
    divine theology. It considers itself to be paradisiac in
    a bold resumption of the state before the fall ; perfected
    in a bold presumption that transcends the time still remaining between the first and second coming of Jesus
    Christ; or divine and archetypal in a bold assumption
    rejecting the distinction between Creator and creature.
    A theology that was still sinless or already perfected,
    not to speak of God’s very own theology, could selfevidently only be the philosophy and the science. It
    could not be a special science distinct from philosophy or
    the rest of the sciences, and still less could it be relegated
    to a dusty corner by these. It would be the philosophy
    either because the light of God illuminates it, or because
    it is identical with this light. However, all that men may
    here and now know and undertake is human theology.
    As such, it can be neither paradisiac (for we are no
    longer there), nor perfected (for we are not yet there),
    nor by any means divine (for we will never be gods). It
    can be only a theologia ektypa viatorum, theology typical
    not of God but of man-that is, of men who are pilgrims.
    It characterizes these men as laborers who, although
    still blinded, are already enlightened with knowledge
    through the grace of God, but who nevertheless do not
    yet view the glory of the coming universal revelation.
    If ever there was a pure fantasy, really “too beautiful
    to be true,” it would be the idea of a philosophical theology or a theological philosophy in which the attempt would be made to reason “theonomously.” Such wishful
    thinking would try by means of a correlative integration
    of concepts to do away with a distinction. A unity would
    be formed out of the duality which exists either de iure
    (as between divine and human knowledge) or at least de
    facto (as between knowledge that is original and ultimate and that which is present and human). But
    realism at this point demands the renunciation of such
    syntheses, notwithstanding the vision of the unity of all
    sciences in God or of the unity of the origin and goal of
    their study. Syntheses have small worth because they are
    too cheaply achieved when there is but a minimum of
    intellectual talent and will to synthesize. But when he
    thinks realistically, the theologian will stick to the fact
    that the theologia archetypa and the theologia ektypa,
    as well as the theologia paradisiaca, or comprehensorum,
    and the theologia viatorum, are two different things, and
    that his problem and task can only be the latter, not the
    former, of these concepts.
    Things would have gone differently and more favorably for the history of modern theology if the foregoing
    distinctions, which are only apparently abstruse, had not
    become, at the ominous turn of the seventeenth century,
    a part of “dogmatic antiquity” (according to Karl von
    Hase). Of course, one may complain about the limited
    viewpoint displayed in them or look with longing and
    hope beyond them toward the perfected theology. But
    the theologian must still carefully avoid trying to produce from his own resources that perfection. Instead, he
    must simply recognize that what is apparently abnormal
    is really the normal for this day and age.
    Theological knowledge, thought, and speech cannot become general truths, and general knowledge cannot become theological truth. Distressing as the situation may
    be, there is no getting around the special character and
    relative solitude of theology in relation to other sciences.
    Is this not also the situation of the community which
    is summoned to attest to the work and word of God in
    the world in which theology must perform its task? If
    this people of God, wandering between the times, does not
    wish to betray its calling, it can only proclaim the work
    and word of God to its environment as a supremely
    novel event. It will not try to integrate its knowledge
    of this novelty with the different knowledge of its
    environment or, in reverse order, the different knowledge of its environment with its own knowledge. Theology will not be ashamed of the solitude in which
    the community of the last days finds itself placed by
    the execution of its missionary charge. Rather, theology
    will, in its own solitude, partake in the solitude of the
    community-whether this happens with sighs or with
    smiles shining through tears. It dare not try to break
    free of its solitude. The community must endure and
    bear its isolation with dignity and cheerfulness; it will
    endure and bear its solitude as a form of the threat and
    risk that do not adhere to it by chance alone.
    The inexplicable solitude of theology and the theologian has definite consequences. Often enough the theologian will experience visible proofs or justifications
    for his feeling that he stands alone in this calling. He
    alone seems involved in what we described in the second series of these lectures as the wonderment, concern,
    and commitment that make a man a theologian. Even
    in the community and, worst of all, among all too
    many of his fellow theologians, the theologian seems
    to stand and persevere alone. Perhaps he is not so
    completely alone as he, at especially troubled moments,
    may assume! The fact that he is not suffering private
    hallucinations, as he occasionally imagines, can suddenly become clear to him even in the statements of
    men who do not seem to be Christians at all. Although
    they would radically reject the notion or claim that they were theologians, they seem actually to know the violent
    disturbance that makes him a theologian. Of course, he
    cannot count on their support. Intra et extra muros ecclesiae, inside and outside the walls of the Church, he will,
    in fact, often enough cast about in vain for companions
    who are also filled with wonder, who are also concerned
    and committed. Instead of finding support, he will often
    receive the painful impression that innumerable Christians and non-Christians apparently find it quite easy to
    withdraw more or less unscathed from the shock that
    makes one a theologian. (I know two men, both doctors
    and excellent men after their fashion, who cordially
    but definitely consider the mental state of the theologian
    to be at best a type of sickness-which is probably inherited ! How could such a view not help but make the
    theologian insecure and appear, not only as a menace
    to his own existence, but as a manifestation of the danger
    of all theology as such?)
    What does not seem to be every man’s possession at
    this point is faith itself. Faith is the fundamental relationship by which the violent disturbance of theology
    is distinguished from other exciting human experiences.
    Of course, the faith of the Christian community is the
    real thing which makes a man a theologian. Faith is the
    use of the freedom which is granted corporately to all
    Christians, by which they may affirm the Word of God,
    put all their trust in him, and obey him wholly. Thus the
    theologian seems to have no lack of “companions in
    faith.” But the Christian community, as the congregatio
    fidelium, is a congregation of men who are characterized
    by the fact that each one (if he really does believe) is so
    compelled and willing to believe that he would believe
    even if he were the only believing man in the whole
    world. There is no other way to exist as a theologian.
    There is no other way such a man can carry out his particular function in the community and the world. And he faces a hard trial when, now and again, he is put to the
    proof concerning this solitude that is necessary precisely
    for the sake of the community in faith. And he also faces
    a hard trial when a continual demonstration is required
    of the latent truth that no one else can take his place
    when it comes to faith and his participation in the faith
    of the community. At his side he will surely find a few
    companions, and only of these few can he be moderately
    sure.
    How, then, can he ever be sure of his own faith? Are
    not his faith, his theological existence, and theology, as
    such, called into question by this solitude-however much
    they are guaranteed by the Word of God and the testimonium Spiritus Sancti, the testimony of the Holy Spirit?
    In this quandary Calvin and, before him, Augustine and
    others reached out for the sternest form of the doctrine
    of predestination. But even this information cannot
    yield an effective solace for one who is solitary. There
    was actually nothing left for Calvin to do but to endure and bear the very solitude of his faith, in order in
    this very way to think and speak as a theologian eminently bound to the Church.
    The real cause, however, for the loneliness of the man
    concerned with theology is the special theological thinking that is invariably demanded of him. What leads him
    again and again into solitude is precisely the special
    character of the intellectus fidei. How could there be,
    even among those who have been freed for faith, a great
    many men ready and able to appropriate the sole possible
    method for the performance of the intellectus fidei?
    How should very many ever be willing to make the
    turn of 180 degrees that is required, not just once, but
    every day anew? How should a crowd be able to question
    and reply, not from the viewpoint of men, but on the
    basis of God’s Word spoken to men? No wonder that in and outside of the community of the faithful, most men
    think that adoption of this method, the completion of
    this turn, and the exclusive obedience to God’s Word are
    too rigid for them and demand to much of them. No
    wonder that they are inclined to perceive nothing else
    but an unnatural bondage in the spiritual freedom they
    are promised ! If only these men, moreover, were merely
    doctors, lawyers, historians, and philosophers, whose
    disapproval forms the inevitable accompaniment of theology along the way which it is called to go ! If only
    there were not so many men within the theologian’s own
    ranks whom he must observe yearning for the fleshpots
    of Egypt. Shortly after starting to run (some of them
    fail utterly to ever get started), these brethren and
    colleagues advertise themselves as the discoverers of the
    newest of things, while in reality (much like a cat that
    is used to landing on its four legs) they are merely
    relapsing into some sort of psychologism, historism,
    or, at best, some kind of anthropology, ontology, or linguistics. If the theologian is really concerned about theology, he should not regret having to swim against the
    stream of fellow theologians and nontheological opinions
    and methods. If the results of his work are not to be
    trivialities, he dare not feel sorry about the pain and the
    cost of enduring a continuous solitude.
    Finally, however, theology is not simply exegesis,
    Church history, and dogmatics. It is ethics as well.
    Ethics is the scrutiny of a definite conception of the
    divine command which is implied in and with the divine
    promise. Ethics seeks to form a clear conception of those
    actions to be performed in Church and world which are
    essential to and typical of the obedience of faith. Ethics
    seems to formulate the practical task assigned to man
    by the gift of freedom. But an immediate conformity is
    not to be expected between this conception and the wishes, attitudes, and efforts that are current and dominant at any one time, both in the world and in the Church. What is, as a rule, much more to be expected in this area is a more or less definite opposition between theology with its questions and answers and the opinions and principles of Mr. and Mrs. “Everyman,” be these major or minor characters, un-Christian or even Christian. Although theology is no enemy to mankind, at its core it is a critical, in fact a revolutionary affair, because, as long as it has not been shackled, its theme is the new man in the new cosmos. Whoever takes up this theme must be prepared, precisely because of what he thinks and says in the practical sphere, to displease the masses. Any environment that measures itself by its own yardstick will find the minority view of theology and the theologian seriously suspect. In such a situation a person may easily become desperate, bitter, skeptical, perhaps even bellicose and mean ; he may become inclined, as an accuser, to turn permanently against his fellow men on account of their lifelong folly and wickedness. Precisely this, of course, may not be permitted to happen.
    If the ethics of evangelical theology does not wish to convict itself of falsehood, it must be represented, for all its definiteness, only by the greatest serenity and peaceableness. Admittedly, its voice will be that of the “lonely bird on the housetop,”‘ resounding pleasingly only in the ears of a few, and constantly exposed to the danger of being shot down by the first comera risk that is perhaps not always insignificant. It is likely that theology will scarcely ever become popular, as little with the pious as with the children of this world, precisely because of the ethical and practical disturbance that issues from it directly and indirectly. Whoever involves himself in theology, if he does this seriously, must be ready and able, in a given situation,
    to endure and bear loneliness just in respect to his
    practical ethics.
    So much for the threat to theology which comes from
    solitude
    The second form of the endangering of theology is more
    threatening than the first because it does not accost theology from the outside, but usually occurs within the
    work of theology itself, remaining, to a certain extent,
    immanent within it. This form is doubt.
    There are two different aspects under which we must
    consider doubt threatening. The first form differs from
    the second in that the doubt which occurs here belongs
    by nature to the whole theological undertaking; as such,
    something must be done to eliminate its dangerousness. In the second form, however, doubt represents
    a quite unnatural threat to theology, and over against
    such doubt the only advice that can be given is the same
    as we offered with respect to solitude-to endure and to
    bear!
    The first form of doubt, although not without danger,
    is to a certain extent natural and susceptible to treatment. It results from the necessity laid upon theology to
    pose the question about truth in faithfulness to its commission and with its eyes fixed on the work and word of
    God. Theology must constantly inquire anew into the
    content of the revelation which has occurred in God’s
    action, by which he reconciled the world to himself. It
    must repeatedly discover afresh the truth and reality
    of this action and the significance of the divine statement made by it. In this sense doubt springs from the
    theological necessity of treating the quest for truth as
    a task that is never completed, that is, instead, set before
    the theologian time and again.
    The theology of the Middle Ages, as well as that of
    the older Protestantism, was carried on by means
    simply of “Questions.” It was thus characterized by radical and untiringly inquisitive occupation with the
    question about truth. This is obviously not quite in
    accord with what John Doe usually thinks of when he
    hears the word “orthodoxy.” The questions envisaged
    by theology, in which even apparently primitive doctrines like the existence of God were placed in doubt,
    were posed as precisely as possible. The attempt was
    then made in each case to find answers which, as far as
    possible, would be just as precise as the questions. The
    formulations of the old catechisms likewise followed
    the method of the interplay of questions and answers.
    Among these the Heidelberg catechism, for example,
    could even ask whether the Reformation doctrine of
    justification did not produce “careless and crazy people”
    -truly a full-blooded doubt! In this sense, doubt simply
    marks the fact that nothing in theology is self-evident.
    Nothing can be had for nothing. Everything must be
    worked through, in order to acquire validity. A paradisiac theology would not need any such work; a theology of glory would also not need it; and in the archetypal theology of God himself, the question about truth
    would form a total unity with its answer. But this is
    not the case in the theologia ektypa viatorum allotted
    to us for the time between Easter and the second coming
    of Jesus Christ. This period requires theological work,
    frank questions, and also (“Socratic”) doubt.
    “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until
    you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken.”
    This is just as valid for every pastor on every Saturday
    when he prepares a sermon as it is for every student
    who listens to a lecture or reads a book. But not everyone is prepared to expose himself repeatedly to “Socratic” doubt or to let it cost him a little sweat to answer
    the question about truth which arises along every step of
    the way. In view of the necessity of doubting in order
    to move forward toward truth, the sluggard might say with Proverbs 22:13, “‘There is a lion outside! I shall be
    slain in the streets !’ ” He might give up theological work
    even before he had begun. The toil involved in this type
    of altogether necessary and legitimate doubt obviously
    implies a very serious endangering of theology, for there
    are many sluggards; indeed, we are all basically sluggards. Nonetheless, this danger can be overcome. Fiat!
    Let it be done !
    The case is different in the second form of doubt.
    There, an uneasiness could, and in fact does, spring up
    at the very center of the performance of the theological
    task. The question might arise whether the whole theological enterprise, in general or in particulars, should
    even be ventured, much less carried out. According to
    our earlier reflections, it cannot be taken for granted
    that the quest for truth is posed in any way by God’s
    work and word, or that this quest has been assigned us
    as a task and, therefore, should at least be wrestled with
    by us. Even less to be taken for granted is the confidence
    that the theological endeavor is not only relevant, but
    that its proper object exists. Is not doubt in the existence
    of God something always uncannily easy even for someone who long ago saw through the simplicity of such
    doubt, or who has perhaps learned from Anselm how to
    handle it in the proper way? Such doubt was already a
    popular illness among the cultured of the early eighteenth century, and even the famous German pietist
    Count Zinzendorf seems to have cultivated it in his
    youth. What, however, would be the consequence if the
    theologian actually surrendered at the very point at
    which opposition to such doubt should be marshaled?
    What if he staggered at the precise moment at which this
    doubt should actually be seen through and despised as
    the act of an insipiens, the “fool” of Psalm 53? Is the
    object of theology, even the history of Immanuel, its
    revelation and human knowledge of it, a real, solid, re liable basis upon which to build? Is there really a foundation, deeper than all pious emotions and their corresponding self-assurance, and stronger than the many
    more-or-less useful apologetic arguments, that can be
    fashioned from historical, psychological, or speculative
    considerations? Does God really exist, work, and speak
    in the history of Immanuel, of Israel, of the church, of
    theology? Is there really something like that inner testimony of the Holy Spirit, by which we are assured of
    God’s existence, activity, and speech in that history?
    What answer could be given to that man of the eighteenth century who dryly maintained that he personally
    had never received such a testimony? David Friedrich
    Strauss called the doctrine of the testimonium Spiritus
    Sancti internum (the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit)
    the Achilles’ heel of the orthodox Protestant system.
    What if someone (or perhaps every theologian) were
    openly or secretly vulnerable in just this Achilles’ heel?
    What if he should, in fact, be wounded there repeatedly?
    Be it noted that in this sense as well, doubt does not
    mean denial or negation. Doubt only means swaying and
    staggering between Yes and No. It is only an uncertainty, although such uncertainty can be much worse
    than negation itself. In its second form, doubt means
    basic uncertainty with respect to the problem of theology as such (not to be confused with the painstaking,
    but necessary openness of theological questioning). This
    doubt produces at the outset of theological work an embarrassment with respect to the very necessity and
    meaning of theological questioning itself. This embarrassment puts into question God’s Word itselfwhich is yet to be examined for its truth ! The embarrassment questions God’s very presence and actionwhich yet are the basis and motive of theology’s inquiry
    into God’s Logos ! This embarrassment concerns the
    very freedom to work as a theologian. Am I free for this work? Or am I perhaps not free for it at all? Swaying and staggering, being uncertain and embarrassed,
    saying at the very beginning “perhaps, but perhaps
    not”-what else can all this be but a serious and threatening danger to theology?
    Doubt in this second form can, of course, only be a
    threat to theology during its human performance within
    the present time of this world. In this second form, human thought is not, as was the first form of doubt,
    dialectical by natural necessity. In its relation to God’s
    work and word it does not necessarily have to continually pose and answer questions. Instead, in this
    second form, human thought is also unnatural, diseased
    by man’s original estrangement, and constantly exposed
    to the corruption and error which arise and follow from
    a primal error, that is, the presumption to ask, ” Did God say ...' " (Gen. 3: 1), or to boldly affirm, "There is
    no God”‘ (Ps. 53:1), or, “‘I am a god”‘ (Ezek. 28:9).
    After the time of this world, however, we await a thorough healing of our human thought, we await a power
    that will render doubt in the problem of theology no
    longer a problem for us. This healing is quite remote from
    the profoundly comforting thought that God certainly
    does not doubt his own existence. As C. F. Gellert writes
    in a hymn, “Things will be better in heaven, when I am in
    the choir of the saints.” But this doubt is a problem for
    us in the present age, in the time between the times,
    in which even the Christian, even the theologian, who
    is certain of God’s grace, is a sinful man.
    Swaying and staggering, life in uncertainty and embarrassment about our very relationship to God’s work
    and word-this condition corresponds all too closely
    to the ambivalence in which we here and now totally
    exist. The only way we can gaze beyond this ambivalence
    is in the petition, “Thy Kingdom come !” As to particulars, there can be a great variety of differences between the reasons for which and the ways in which doubt
    arises and continually endangers theology. All these
    ways hark back continually to one basic flaw. Although
    we (both the community and the Christians who are,
    including theologians, its members) no doubt quite
    sufficiently partake of the message of our completed
    liberation for God, we time and again fundamentally
    neglect to make use of this freedom to exclude doubt. We
    see, recognize, and know everything, but then once again
    we see, recognize, and know nothing at all. Theology
    cannot here and now become a reality without being accompanied by its deeply internal endangering through
    this contradiction. Its character remains fragmentary,
    a “knowing in part” (I Cor. 13:12).
    At this point a brief reference should be made to three
    causes and forms of the doubt that threatens, undermines, and divides theology from within.
    Firstly, doubt in theology might powerfully arise in
    the face of the concentration of the principalities and
    powers which still rein in this age, competing, with apparent seriousness and undoubtedly with disturbing impressiveness, with the work and word of God. What is the
    godly power of the Gospel, as praised by Paul in Romans
    1:16-17, when compared with the powers of the state
    or the states, or today with the alliances of states that
    struggle with one another? What is the power of the
    Gospel compared with the powers of world economics,
    natural science, and the technology based upon it, the
    fine or less fine arts, sport and fashion, ideologies old
    and new, mystic or rationalistic, moral or immoral?
    Does not man really live by these and scarcely or not at
    all by the Word that proceeds from the mouth of God?
    Has God really said something superior to all these
    powers, something which limits and subdues them all?
    Has he spoken in such a way that man is now unambiguously committed, as well as freed, to think and speak precisely on the basis of this Word? Must the theologian
    not be blind who would not let himself be impressed,
    perhaps gradually, perhaps suddenly, perhaps partially,
    perhaps completely, by those other powers? How can he
    avoid losing sight of the object of theology, beginning at
    least to doubt its meaning and possibility, and becoming
    (according to the Letter of James) like a wave of the sea,
    driven and tossed by the wind? “Let no such man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord !” is
    what is added there. How could such a man receive anything? But what becomes, then, of the question about
    truth that is posed for him? What becomes of his service in the community and the world? And, incidentally,
    what becomes of the theologian himself, since it is he
    who has taken the risk of joining the pilgrimage of God’s
    people, the community of believers?
    But in the second place, doubt can also have its cause
    in the community that encircles the theologian, in the
    feebleness, disunity, and perhaps even the perverseness
    of the form and proclamation of his own familiar
    Church. The great crisis of Christian faith, as well as of
    Christian theology, that arose in the seventeenth century
    did not have its primary basis in the rise of modern
    science, for instance, or of the absolute state which
    later also became religiously indifferent. According to
    the illuminating hypothesis of Emmanuel Hirsch, this
    crisis arose prior to all such shocks, simply in the painfully confusing fact of the stable juxtaposition and opposition of three different churches. Sealed officially
    and demonstratively in the Peace of Westphalia, these
    three different confessions each represented exclusive
    claims to revelation which relativized the claims of each.
    Subsequent acquaintance with the great non-Christian
    religions of the Near and Far East underlined this relativity still more painfully. But the vision of God’s work
    and word can also be obstructed for the theologian (as well as for each man) by what confronts him as the
    Church, as ecclesiastical doctrine and order, or as Christendom and Christianity. Concretely present in individual persons or groups of persons, these Christian
    relativities may, rightly or wrongly, become an offense to
    him.
    But in the third place, everyone should pay close attention to the possibility that what basically makes himself a doubter is not that the world impresses him so
    much or that the Church impresses him so little, but
    rather that there is a structural flaw in his own private
    life which undoubtedly influences the public side of his
    conduct. It is a notorious fact that no Christian (and
    likewise no theologian) can altogether rid himself of
    this flaw. Two contrasting possibilities must be considered here, of which one or the other (and perhaps both, in ideal competition) plays at least a concomitant
    role alongside the first two sources of theological doubt
    which we have described.
    The first possibility, on the one hand, may be that the
    man who is called, ready, and able to do theological work
    may think he should and can live dualistically, in the
    twin kingdoms of public and private life. He lives in the
    knowledge of faith, but he is prepared to live this obedient faith only within certain limits. Alongside the intellectus ldei, he allows himself a praxis vitae, a conduct, which is not controlled by faith, a deportment
    which departs from faith by following chance or laws
    of its own. Alongside his knowledge of God’s work and
    word, such a man allows himself a secular and trivial
    will which is, at all events, not bound and directed by
    God’s. Alongside his thought, speech, and acts, which
    are kept in order by the object of theology, stand those
    which are either ordered arbitrarily or not ordered
    at all. In this way he exists from the very outset
    in a strained relationship to the Holy Spirit who, according to Paul, is intended and desires to bear witness
    to his spirit (Rom. 8:16). The tension remains, even
    should he theoretically affirm the word of the spirit.
    Who is not familiar with such an affirmation? Small
    wonder that if he confronts himself honestly, he is
    obliged to recognize and confess himself as the doubter he
    is, as a theologian lame and limping on one foot. When he
    only half believes, he cannot expect to know any more
    than half. He has to be content with swaying and staggering, since at least he does not collapse completely.
    Nevertheless, there is an unkind statement in the Book
    of Revelation that the Lord, if he does not find him hot,
    would rather see him cold, but finding him only lukewarm, he will spew him out of his mouth. What, then,
    will become of such a man’s theology-though, perhaps,
    in its special bracket it was far from being the worst?
    However, the structural flaw in the theologian’s personal conduct that compels him to doubt could be just
    the opposite. In the relationship of man to God’s work
    and word there may exist not only an unhealthy undernourishment but an equally unhealthy overeating. A
    man perhaps comes from a family and environment in
    which theology was not only the Alpha and Omega (as
    the case should be) but also the substitute, which it
    should not be, for all the other letters of his alphabet.
    Or, as a novice, he has devoted himself to theology with
    the incomparable exclusiveness of a first love; and now
    he lives not only as a theologian in everything, but even
    entirely as a theologian alone, to the elimination of
    everything else. He has no basic interest in the newspapers, novels, art, history, sport; and so he reveals that
    basically he has no interest in any man. He is interested
    only in his theological work and in his theological concern. Who is not acquainted with this situation? Not
    only are there students and professors of theology who
    go beyond their calling, but also preachers who live their
    whole life hermetically sealed off within their congregations. They associate with other men only in an hypertheological way. A dangerous business ! The saying in
    Ecclesiastes 7 :16 is not in vain: “Be not righteous overmuch, and do not make yourself overwise; why should
    you destroy yourself ?” In this way a person can, in fact,
    destroy himself as a theologian. The reason for this is
    not merely the great probability that such a person will
    fail in carrying out his experiment and will then inadvertently and without admitting it succumb once again,
    and perhaps quite thoroughly, to the syndrome of the
    two kingdoms and all its corollaries. The major reason
    is that, like all hypertrophy, theological overemphasis
    demonstrably leads all too easily to satiety, in this case
    to what was called in the ancient monastic language the
    mortal sin of taedium spirituale, the spiritual boredom, from which only a small step is needed to arrive at
    skepticism. Concentrated theological work is a good
    thing, or even the best thing, but exclusive theological
    existence is not a good thing. Such existence, in which a
    man actually plays the deadly role of a God unconcerned
    about his creation, must sooner or later inevitably lead
    to doubt, in fact to radical doubt.
    We must be content, in conclusion, with three provisional aphorisms concerning doubt :
28. No theologian, whether young or old, pious or less
    pious, tested or untested, should have any doubt that for
    some reason or other and in some way or other he is also
    a doubter. To be exact, he is a doubter of the second
    unnatural species, and he should not doubt that his doubt
    is by no means conquered. He might just as wellalthough this would certainly not be “well”-doubt that
    he is likewise a poor sinner who at the very best has been
    saved like a brand from the burning.
29. He should also not deny that his doubt, in this
    second form, is altogether a pernicious companion which
    has its origin not in the good creation of God but in the
    Nihil-the power of destruction-where not only the
    foxes and rabbits but also the most varied kinds of
    demons bid one another “Good night.” There is certainly a justification for the doubter. But there is no
    justification for doubt itself (and I wish someone would
    whisper that in Paul Tillich’s ear). No one, therefore,
    should account himself particularly truthful, deep, fine,
    and elegant because of his doubt. No one should flirt
    with his unbelief or with his doubt. The theologian
    should only be sincerely ashamed of it.
30. But in the face of his doubt, even if it be the most
    radical, the theologian should not despair. Doubt indeed
    has its time and place. In the present period no one, not
    even the theologian, can escape it. But the theologian
    should not despair; because this age has a boundary beyond which again and again he may obtain a glimpse
    when he begs God, “Thy Kingdom come !” Even within
    this boundary, without being able simply to do away
    with doubt, he can still offer resistance, at least like the
    Huguenot woman who scratched Resistez! on the windowpane. Endure and bear it!
    So much for the endangering of theology from doubt.
    Solitude and doubt do not constitute either the worst or
    the weightiest threat to theology. Theology may also be
    called into question by the very object by which it lives,
    to which it is dedicated, on which its justification is
    founded, and for whose adequate understanding it labors. It can also be threatened by God. It can? In fact,
    it becomes and is threatened by him. It finds itself
    assailed, not only from without (solitude) and not only
    from within (doubt), but also from above. Its work
    takes place under conditions of temptation, in a testing
    by that fire of the righteous and divine wrath which
    consumes everything of it that is made of wood, hay, and
    straw (I Cor. 3:12).
    The difficult concept of temptation must now be examined. There can be no question but that everything
    which was reported heretofore about the dangers confronting theology was only child’s play compared to
    what is presently before us.
    At the outset it may be wondered why the behavior of
    so many theologians hardly betrays an awareness of
    their theology’s submission to a test from God. Often,
    indeed, theology may be seen quite zealously occupied
    with all sorts of attempts to evade its solitude and to
    ward off the doubt that undermines it. It seems, however, to suffer remarkably little from fear before the
    onslaught of God, and it finds astonishingly little reason
    to meet this gravest and sharpest form of its crisis. But
    who should not have to wonder, first of all, at himself in
    this respect? For what theologian could acquit himself
    of all carelessness in this matter? Who could guarantee,
    or even boast, that he exists, thinks, and speaks in serious
    awareness of the divine temptation that confronts his activity? Who could claim to conduct himself or be
    recognizable as someone who resolutely acknowledges
    and meets this temptation? On the contrary, the worst
    thing in this whole sad matter is really the ease with
    which every theologian fails to notice or repeatedly
    forgets the fact that his enterprise is threatened by this
    most radical of endangerments.
    The “temptation” encountering theology is simply the
    event that God withdraws himself from the theological
    work of man. In this event God hides his face from the
    activity of the theologian, turns away from him, and
    denies him the presence and action of his Holy Spirit.
    Why should God owe the Holy Spirit to man? Let it
    not be thought that God’s withdrawal is a judgment
    upon the work of a poor theology only; it can also be
    a judgment upon the work of a theology that, from a
    human point of view, is good or even excellent. With
    respect to the background from which such a theology
    arises, or regarding the new turn which it is taking, this
    theology can be outstanding; it may, perhaps, be conservative in the best sense, while at the same time being
    progressive and up-to-date. Perhaps it has no dearth
    of biblical and exegetical foundations, or of systematic
    depth and art, or of actual pointedness and practical
    usefulness. Perhaps sermons will arise from it which
    are well prepared and forcefully delivered, and which
    are readily heard, and justly so, by at least a larger or
    smaller selected circle of more-or-less modern men.
    Important literature, with content at once sterling and
    bold, will be prompted by it, studied, discussed, and
    tirelessly surpassed by still better works. The young
    may begin to pay attention, and their elders will be well
    satisfied. The community appears edified, and the world
    not disinterested. In short, a gratefully hailed light of
    the Church is kindled there and appears to shine forth. Something reflective of this condition of contentment
    and satiety can be sensed from the inscription which
    appears under the portrait of an old professor and dean
    of the Church in Basel (the learned, eloquent, and always satisfied Jerome Burckhardt, who lived at the beginning of the eighteenth century) :
    Make, God, this asset to our town
    Abide for many years.
    He makes Thy holy Word resound
    With vigor in our ears.
    So excellent may be the theologian’s work. But of
    what help is it? Everything is in order, but everything
    is also in the greatest disorder. The mill is turning, but
    it is empty as it turns. All the sails are hoisted, but no
    wind fills them to drive the ship. The fountain adorned
    with many spouts is there, but no water comes. Science
    there is, but no knowledge illumined by the power of
    its object. There is no doubt piety, but not the faith
    which, kindled by God, catches fire. What appears to
    take place there does not really take place. For what
    happens is that God, who is supposedly involved in
    all theological work, maintains silence about what is
    thought and said in theology about him (rather than
    of him as its source and basis). It does happen that
    the real relation of God to theology and the theologians
    must be described by a variation of the famous passage
    in Amos 5: I hate, I despise your lectures and seminars,
    your sermons, addresses, and Bible studies, and I take
    no delight in your discussions, meetings, and conventions.
    For when you display your hermeneutic, dogmatic,
    ethical, and pastoral bits of wisdom before one another
    and before me, I have no pleasure in them; I disdain
    these offerings of your fatted calves. Take away from
    me the hue and cry that you old men raise with your
    thick books and you young men with your dissertations ! I will not listen to the melody of your reviews that you
    compose in your theological magazines, monthlies, and
    quarterlies.
    It is a terrible thing when God keeps silence, and by
    keeping silence speaks. It is terrible when one or another theologian must notice or, at least, suspect that this
    occurs, and most terrible of all when many do not even
    seem to notice and perhaps not even suspect that this
    occurs. How horrendous it is for them when, pursuing
    their own carefree way, they fail to notice that theology
    and all its questions are called in question totally and
    radically by God. All theology is threatened finally and
    definitively by the temptation that comes from him!
    But how can this happen? How can God be absent
    where such good work takes place, where there is so
    much concentrated reflection upon him and so much
    careful respect for his direction, where he is spoken of
    so expressly, loudly, and earnestly, as is at least attempted in theology? How can God be against those
    who are for him? How can he speak the terrible language of silence to those who, like the theologians, would
    like to behave as his friends? Should God not be a
    helper, witness, and guarantor when men are obviously
    concerned with his work and word ; and, in the last
    analysis, not arbitrarily concerned, but concerned according to his call and command? Should he not be
    present when men have taken up at his command the
    task of the science of his Logos?
    The first thing to be said in reply is that God does
    not have to do anything at all; therefore, he does not
    have to be present. What happens in the temptation of
    theology can happen. Theologians, even if they are incomparably good and faithful, are still men; in fact,
    they are sinful men, who not only have no claim to
    God’s assent and support, but must depend upon his free grace to live. One thing holds true in every case of the
    theologian’s work and word : “When thou hidest thy
    face, they are dismayed ; when thou takest away their
    breath, they die and return to their dust” (Ps. 104:29).
    God would not be God if he were not free to conduct
    himself in this manner toward them, letting death be
    also the wages of their sin. And nothing monstrous
    occurs when he also makes use of this freedom in relation to them.
    But God is not capricious and arbitrary. For all he
    does, there is good reason. He exercises law and justice
    when he makes the theologians, the church, and the world
    realize that even the best theology is in itself and, as
    such, a human work, sinful, imperfect, in fact corrupt
    and subject to the powers of destruction. It is God’s
    right to show that, in itself, this work is wholly incapable
    of service to God and his community in the world. Only
    by God’s mercy can it become and remain fitting
    and useful. God’s mercy is the election in which God
    also rejects; God’s calling in which he also discharges
    and deposes; God’s grace in which he also judges; God’s
    Yes which also utters his No. And God’s rejection, deposition, judgment, and negation strike, punish, and
    overturn the very foundations of everything which
    proves to be continually sinful, imperfect, corrupt, and
    subject to the power of nothingness-even in man’s best
    works and in man’s best theology.
    All theological work can only become and be fitting
    and useful before God and men when it is repeatedly
    exposed to and obliged to pass through this testing fire.
    This is the fire of the divine love, but it is also a consuming fire. All that makes theological work pleasing to
    God and beneficial for the world is what remains of
    gold, silver, and precious stones, according to I Corinthians 3 :12. The passage of theology through this fire is
    its temptation. Compared to this, even its most desperate solitude or its most radical doubt is only child’s play,
    for what might remain of theology after this fire? The
    theologian can only have God for himself when he has
    him continually against himself. And only when he
    reconciles himself to this can he, for his part, also
    desire to be for God.
    All theology appears reprehensible and, therefore,
    subject to temptation by God, firstly, to the extent that
    even if it should all the time not lose sight of the first
    commandment, it scarcely seems able to avoid weighty
    transgressions of the second and third commands concerning worship of images and the taking of God’s
    name in vain. “When words are many, transgression is
    not lacking” (Proverbs 10:19). Where and when was
    theology ever untainted by the enormous presumption of
    treating its positive and negative as well as its critical
    concepts, along with its linguistic forms and constructions, as identifications of reality instead of as parables?
    Theoretically, of course, it zealously denies this attempt,
    but practically it undertakes it all the same. When has
    theology not attempted to entrap the divine Logos in its
    analogies, setting these analogies, in fact, on the throne
    of God, worshiping and proclaiming them or recommending and acclaiming them for worship and proclamation? And where or when was it ever free from the
    frivolity of treating its indications of God’s work and
    word in a smooth flow of thoughts and speech, just as
    though they were roulette chips, which can be tossed on
    the table of general conversation according to whim
    or desire, in hopes of winning hard cash? How could
    God be present there, or present other than in silence,
    even though something fine might well be said about
    him? Such inversions necessarily bring to light the
    whole disproportion between God and that which man
    in confrontation with him believes he can permit him self. Since God cannot condone this disproportion, he
    cannot be for or with the theologians and their theology,
    but only against them.
    The work of theology, secondly, appears subject to
    judgment, to the extent that the development of all kinds
    of human vanity seems almost necessarily to belong to
    its very procedure. At the very point where everyone
    should simply try and do his best; where he should look
    neither to the right nor to the left; and where even his
    finest and most costly elaborations should make him
    deeply troubled and sincerely humbled-at this point the
    question, “Who is the greatest among us?” seems to be
    at least as interesting as the plain and modest question
    about the matter at hand. Yes, who is the greatest? Who
    exercises the strongest attraction and has, for instance,
    the most people in his church? Who has the most children for confirmation? Or who, in the university, attracts the largest audiences?-a question which here
    and there can even lead one to probe the collective
    vanity of whole theological faculties! Whose books receive the most attention and are perhaps even read?
    Who is called on for lectures both at home and abroad?
    In short, who conducts his business in the most resplendent fashion? It might be thought that the statement,
    “See how they love one another!” (if such a thing could
    be said of any group of men), might apply pre-eminently
    to theologians. But, in fact, they themselves are nearly
    proverbial for their zealousness about all that they continually have in their hearts and on their lips to say
    against one another, and for what they put in black
    and white against one another with deep mistrust and a
    massive air of superiority. This was done more coarsely
    in days of old; today, as a rule, it happens softly,
    politely, but all the more pointedly. Melanchthon certainly was not alone when he thought he should expressly add, in the list of clarifications and improve ments which he expected in the hereafter, liberation
    from the rabies theologorum, the fury of the theologians.
    No doubt there will always be serious enough reason for
    this rabies, and even the eagerness to do the job best
    and be the greatest could, at least from afar, have something to do with the justified concern about the dominance of truth in the Church, a concern demanded of
    the theologian in eminent fashion. But where and when
    was there not a continual trespassing of the boundary
    between this concern and the sphere of a conceitedness
    and obstinacy which are but disgustingly human? And
    how should God be present in this sphere other than in
    wrath and, as a result, in silence? What else could the
    theology of these theologians be-when they contend for
    themselves and against one another (regardless of how
    good they might otherwise be)-than theology that is
    placed in temptation by its own object?
    Theology is, thirdly, reprehensible and open to temptation to the extent that it is, by its very nature, a theoretical work. In theology a man is no doubt bent over
    the Scriptures, harkening to the voice of the great
    teachers of all centuries, and devoted to the true God
    and true man with, as is to be hoped, earnest piety and
    the utmost exertion of his own intelligence. But in this
    work he all too easily loses sight of the concrete relationship between true God and true man ; he substitutes,
    instead, his own reflections, meditations, and perorations,
    which are based upon thought that is not controlled by
    God. Theological existence, as such, always has something of the monastic life about it, including both the
    peaceful intensity of monasticism, as well as its carefree
    attitude and spiritual comfortableness. Is there not also
    an astonishing disparity between what is important, discussed and, more or less victoriously put in action in
    theology, and the errors and confusions, the sea of suffering and misery prevailing in the world that surrounds theology? What has happened in the past, and what
    happens in our very own time? There, amidst the world,
    is the still “unconquered past” of the madness of dictators, the intrigues of their cliques and of the peoples
    who form their following; there is also the past of the
    stupidity of their opponents and conquerors. There are
    the murderers and the murdered of the concentration
    camps. There are Hiroshima, Korea, Algeria, and the
    Congo. There is the undernourishment of the greater
    part of mankind. There is the cold war and the sinister
    threat of a “hot” one, which might very well be the
    last. In other words, there is the stubbornly promoted
    end of all life on our planet. Here, however, in the
    realm of theology, is a little de-mythologizing in
    Marburg and a little Church Dogmatics in Basel. Here
    are the rediscovery of the “historical” Jesus and the
    glorious new discovery of a “God above God.” Here are
    the discussions on baptism and eucharist, Law and
    Gospel, Kerygma and myth, Romans 13 and the heritage
    of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Here are ecumenical discussions
    and Church councils. Nothing of all this should be underestimated, much less disparaged; doubtless the perspiration of many noble souls has not been poured out in
    vain over all these enterprises.
    But Kyrie Eleison !-what is the real relationship to
    everything that simultaneously happened there? Could
    not theology be a luxury occupation, and could not we
    all be in the process of fleeing from the living God?
    Could not such a questionable theologian as Albert
    Schweitzer have chosen the better part (precisely from
    the point of view of the object of theology), and along
    with him the first and best of those who here and there
    have attempted, without any theological reflection, to
    heal the wounded, to feed the hungry, to give drink to
    the thirsty, and to prepare a home for the orphaned? Is
    not all theology distinguished by the fact that in the shadow of the great need of the world (and also of the
    Church in the world), it seems to have so much time
    and so little haste? Even if it does not deny the Second
    Coming of Jesus Christ, it is apparently occupied with
    other matters and looks toward its redemption in this
    coming with a remarkably easygoing air. I draw no
    conclusions-none, for instance, such as those suggested by a young man from Germany (obviously somewhat delirious) who recently proposed to me in a
    friendly manner during a visit that I should burn all my
    books-together with those of Bultmann, Ernst Fuchs,
    and a few others-as wholly worthless. I am only asking questions. But they are urgent questions which, by
    the very fact that they arise and cannot simply be
    brushed aside, represent a form of the wrath of God
    by which all that we produce as theology is assailed.
    Fourthly, however, theology appears reprehensible
    and open to temptation by God with respect to its own
    achievements. How often has it actually led the Church
    and aided her service in the world, as it should have
    done? How often has it not, on the contrary, misled the
    Church and hindered her service? Either it did not
    itself abide in the school of the Scriptures, desiring,
    instead, to bar its entrance to others as well, or, without
    noticing it, it howled with the wolves of the current day,
    or it reacted headstrongly and arbitrarily against the
    present, driving out one wolf only to throw the gate
    open to others. Is it not dismaying to see how even the
    greatest and most famous theologians, even an Athanasius, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Luther, Zwingli,
    or Calvin, not to speak of Kierkegaard or Kohlbrugge,
    have left really catastrophic traces behind, in spite of
    their positive influence and results? When was theology
    ever safe from reading alien or even contradictory
    things into Scriptures at the same time that it undertook to explain them? When it recognizes one thing properly, it misreads something else all the more thoroughly. At one point it bears witness, while at another
    point it denies all the more sharply. Here it throws a
    spotlight on the truth, but there it solemnly and determinedly puts the truth under a bushel. In which of its
    forms would theology not be required to apply first of
    all to itself the “Woe to you !” spoken by Jesus to the
    scribes, instead of applying this, as theology so loves to
    do, to its contemporary opponents? But if theology
    stands under that “Woe to you !” it stands in temptation.
    It stands judged by the question as to whether it might
    not be working in the service of the Antichrist instead
    of in the service of Jesus Christ.
    Let us pause a moment. Things would not be so bad
    if this last and most potent threat to theology only involved certain crises which, although more or less acute,
    were temporary and pertained only to one or another
    special theology. No doubt this threat actually erupts in
    acute crises, in recognizable accidents in the history of
    theology, and at special times and places. But potentially,
    theology stands under this threat at every time and
    place. There is no theology which could live otherwise
    than by the mercy of God. No theology, therefore, can
    be proper and useful other than by the experience of
    God’s judgment.
    And from another viewpoint, things would also not
    be so bad if all that was involved was the temptation
    of theology by the devil. To a large measure, if not
    altogether, the devil may be the explanation of the
    menace confronting theology, where its solitude and
    doubt are concerned. Following a famous example, the
    theologian may occasionally throw an ink well at the
    devil, and when all else fails he should do this courageously. But with respect to temptation, such an action
    would not be an appropriate measure, since temptation is an action of God. It is an element of the grace of God,
    which is granted even to the theologian and his curious
    work. In its complete and terrible harshness (as the
    consuming fire of God’s love, we said previously), temptation must serve for the salvation of theology and its
    radical purification. Obviously there cannot and may
    not be any wish to flee from temptation. It obviously
    demands being endured and borne. Whenever it is not
    endured and borne, theology cannot be a happy science.
    “Endure and bear!” was our advice (or, more precisely,
    our watchword) with respect to the endangering of
    theology by solitude, doubt, and temptation. Let no one
    expect that this advice will be surpassed and supplanted
    at the close of this third series of our lectures by some
    other phrase that sounds easier and more pleasant. If
    this were the case, the fact would become evident that
    what was said previously about the threats posed for
    theology and the theologians should, in the final analysis,
    not be taken too seriously. And the still worse consequence would be that we would, by such a substitution,
    have turned our backs upon the very best thing that
    emerges from this whole shadowy complex of dangers.
    All that we are permitted (and required) to do is to
    meditate on the positive significance of this demanding
    endurance and bearing of solitude, doubt, and temptation. To what does our watchword, “Endure and bear,”
    point? Indeed, if we turn ourselves toward that to which
    it points, we may find that it has no need at all for
    another and better phrase to surpass and supplant it.
    “Endure and bear!” undoubtedly reminds us first of
    all that an inevitable and ineradicable distress must be
    reckoned with wherever theology is concerned. What we
    know as theology and, consequently, as theological existence is always assaulted by the threefold menace, and
    will continue to face great danger always and at every
    place, as long as time endures. We might well wish it
    were otherwise, for the threat is painful, agonizing, and,
    in its last and most intense form, even deadly. The
    spiteful remark that theology is a type of sickness is not
    altogether unjustified ! At its ultimate and greatest ex treme, theology might well be called a “sickness unto
    death.” The end of this sickness cannot be predicted; no
    one can expect to be cured of it by proper treatment or
    by a natural process of healing. Should anyone wish
    things were different, he would be well advised not
    to get involved from the very beginning. He is no proper
    theologian who supposes he might be allowed, or even
    required and enabled, to deny or avoid the endangering
    of theology and the theologian, brushing it aside or
    putting it out of his mind because it means distress and
    suffering. There are plenty of other occupations which,
    apparently at least, are less weighty and dangerous.
    From beginning to end, the theological task can only be
    undertaken and carried out at the cost of that characteristically sharp unpleasantness which encounters the
    theologian through every one of the threats we have
    described. The theologian must endure and bear this
    unpleasantness.
    But one thing is excluded by the very fact that the
    theologian endures and bears what must be endured and
    borne. The unpleasantness he sustains cannot induce
    him to give in, flee, or capitulate, to refuse to take up or
    continue the work of theology, or to let its problem fall
    by the wayside. Although endurance and submission
    may be performed with fatigue, sighs, and groans, or
    blood, sweat, and tears, they remain the opposite of all
    sorrowful resignation and surrender, even when circumstances become far worse than had been supposed
    in advance. “To bear” means to bear the burden laid
    upon oneself, in spite of its painfulness, instead of
    throwing it aside or passing it on to someone else. And
    “to endure,” to be constant or persistent, means to resist
    with one’s back pressed against the wall, to refuse to
    retreat regardless of the cost, and to stand fast under
    all circumstances. To endure and bear means not to be
    slack but to show a little courage for God’s sake. If, of course, anyone was unwilling or unable to show a little
    courage as a theologian, he should be advised not to
    become involved at all. But why should he not be willing
    and able to show just a little courage?
    Looking back on our last three lectures, let us draw
    this one basic and final conclusion : There can be no
    theology without much distress, but also none without
    courage in distress. This is the double meaning of “Endure and bear !”
    We are not weakening our initial, as well as ultimate,
    thesis when we proceed to the following statement : The
    danger and distress of theology contain hope-and this
    hope is not somewhere alongside or behind them but
    within themselves. By saying this, we have not withdrawn anything from our thesis, nor have we added
    anything new. We have only repeated it in its full import. The danger nevertheless contains hope; this is
    nothing less than the “Nevertheless” of Psalms 73:23.
    And the summons and permission to take up and perform theological work are inseparable from the fact
    that this distress is endured and borne; hope exists not
    after this fact but in this very fact. Let us attempt to
    understand this situation somewhat better.
    The work of theology is oriented in every respect to
    the reality of God’s work and the truth of his Word.
    This truth-radically superior to theology-is presupposed for it in the manner of a radical presupposition.
    At every time and place, this truth is the future of
    theology. It is not something placed in its hands or put
    in its charge, something at the disposal of its thought
    and speech, surrendered and delivered up to the control
    and rule of the theologian. At every time and place,
    theology can only look and move toward this truth.
    Theology is aroused and commissioned as a function in
    the service of the community by God’s work and word in their awesome majesty. But it is aroused and commissioned as the work of men ; and, as the work of men,
    it is obviously and necessarily called in question and
    endangered. Those involved in this work find themselves
    isolated, plagued by doubt, and ultimately tempted,
    humbled, accused, and condemned (along with their
    work) by that majestic reality and truth upon which
    their gaze is fixed. How could it be otherwise? Human
    work and words cannot stand before the divine work
    and word ; in relation to these, the former can only fall
    and crumble.
    The judgment which encounters theology is what we
    have considered in our previous three lectures. Were
    theology to receive any special honor-an honor which
    might exceed that of other human acts or human science
    -it could consist only in the dangerous assaults which
    menace it in such a striking and unmistakable way.
    Anyone who wishes, may point his finger at this sickness
    suffered by theology; the theologian is the last who
    could overlook or deny the fact that such illness befalls
    him. This is the payment theology must make for the
    extraordinary ambition of its enterprise in devoting
    itself to this object, in posing and answering the question about truth with respect to this reality and truth.
    Theology, therefore, has no right to complain about
    the fact that such threats befall it. By what right could
    it ever withdraw from this endangering? Things cannot be otherwise if (as should be the case) theology is
    dedicated to the superior work and word of God. It is
    and remains informed about all that threatens it; it
    must always reconsider it; and it must proclaim abroad
    the definite fact that all flesh is accused, condemned, and
    radically assailed by such encounter. All flesh is encompassed here-the moral as well as the immoral, the
    pious as well as the impious, all human thought, will,
    and action, the most excellent as well as the less ex cellent. There is no human work or word which can
    avoid becoming dust and ashes in the fire that proceeds
    from that source. How could theology delude itself and
    claim that its own work and word would form an exception? To the extent that it fancied and claimed such
    an exception for itself, it would again turn its back on
    the work and word of God. It would forfeit its object
    and become an empty train of thought or a play on
    words. And to the same extent, theology would also
    isolate itself, divorcing itself from the community and
    world, in whose midst it must perform its service.
    Theology can be useful only when it does not retreat
    from the divine judgment that accompanies the work
    of all men, but, instead, unreservedly exposes and submits itself to this judgment. Only by not rejecting or
    resisting the threat that encounters it, but, instead, acknowledging its propriety, reconciling itself to it, and enduring and bearing it, can theology become useful. When
    theology does this, it shows by its own behavior the reality and truth of its encounter with God’s work and word,
    with the object that gives it its foundation as a science.
    And when theology does this, it confirms the fact that it
    has a legitimate place and service in the midst of the community and mankind surrounding it. When theology
    confesses its own solidarity with all flesh and with the
    whole world under God’s judgment, it receives hope in
    the grace of God which is the mystery of this judgment.
    This hope is a present reality in which theology may
    also participate and do its own work.
    It is not enough to observe that there is no ground for
    complaint about the fact that theology must suffer as
    much as all men’s thoughts, intentions, and performances in other realms are exposed to suffering. But it
    must be stated that theology must suffer even more
    than those. God’s painful opposition to men’s work, an
    opposition which includes both his gracious encourage ment and the hope he grants to men and to the whole world, must necessarily appear more clearly and harshly (not to say more spectacularly) in relation to the theologian than to other men. God more clearly opposes the theologian, who is ex professo concerned with the communion between God and man and between man and God, than he opposes the work of the doctor, engineer, or artist, of the farmer, craftsman, or worker, of the salesman or clerk. How much of the yawning abyss which runs through all human existence can, in these professions, remain relatively and provisionally concealed by the substantial quality, boldness, and tangible success of human intentions and achievements ! It is quite fitting that what the theologian undertakes and accomplishes must dispense with such concealment. Were this not the case, he or his environment would be deluding itself ! With every step that the theologian ventures, he has occasion to comprehend once more and unambiguously the fragmentary character of his questions and answers, his research and speech, his discoveries and formulations. There is no thought that he thinks and no sentence that he speaks which do not remind him, as well as others, that God is no doubt good, but that man, even in his best endeavors and deeds, is not good at all. What exegesis, sermon, or theological treatise is worthy of being called “good”? And is it not obviously sheer nonsense to speak of “famous” theologians or even theological “geniuses,” not to mention considering oneself as such? Paul Gerhardt is right: “The Lord alone is king, but I am a faded flower.”‘ Who else would have so much and so direct occasion and reason for applying this verse to himself and his productions as has the theologian? This is a strange advantage that seems to be due him in comparison with other men ! Let him never be ashamed of it ! Otherwise he would be ashamed of the Gospel, which is entrusted to him in such a special way.
    He would be ashamed of the special object of his science,
    and also of the special service which has been made his,
    and finally of the special hope in which he is allowed
    to carry out his service.
    The mystery of the special threat to theology is precisely its special hope. Precisely for the sake of this
    hope, the theologian is made to suffer from solitude,
    doubt, and temptation more noticeably than other men.
    By the very fact that he grasps this hope, not somewhere
    alongside, but in the very center of his special exposure
    to danger, he may, should, and can endure and bear the
    danger that confronts him. With Abraham (Romans
    4:18), he believes in hope, where there is nothing to be
    hoped for (contra spem in spem). Does he not know,
    has he not heard, and is not this his own most personal
    theme : that God in his Son came into the world to heal
    those who are sick and to seek and save those who are
    lost? What if his cause or even he himself (to the extent
    that he is devoted to this cause) should seem quite
    exceptionally sick and lost? Why should he not conclude
    from this, when he takes up this cause and endures and
    bears what must be suffered for its sake, that he is
    allowed to be a man who is sought, healed, and saved
    by God in quite a special way?
    At this point we may and must take a further step
    and attempt to understand somewhat more concretely
    the relationship between the radical endangering of
    theology and its hope.
    In God’s judgment all theological as well as human
    existence can have no justification, no fame, no endurance. It can only turn to dust and ashes before God. Yet
    just this God is the hope of man’s work and word, because God’s wrath is the fire of his love, and because his
    grace is hidden and effective under the contradiction (contrarium) of his judgment, and draws near to its
    revelation in this judgment upon all theological as well
    as human existence. This very God is the promise and
    stimulus, according to which theology may and must be
    risked in its entirely endangered situation. God is this
    hope precisely at the point where human works and
    words are manifestly nothing better than demonstrations of their precariousness and powerlessness. God
    may, can, and should be man’s hope precisely and preeminently in this hopeless situation, contra spem in
    spem. This is the very situation in which, at God’s command, one should cast one’s net. When understood in this
    sense, God’s radical endangering of all human and,
    especially, all theological existence is only a relative
    and not an absolute endangering. It is one which can be
    endured and borne.
    The God of whom we speak is no god imagined or
    devised by men. The grace of the gods who are imagined
    or devised by men is usually a conditional grace, to be
    merited and won by men through supposedly good
    works, and not the true grace which gives itself freely.
    Instead of being hidden under the form of a contradiction, sub contrario, and directed to man through radical
    endangering and judgment, man’s imagined grace is
    usually directly offered and accessible in some way to
    him and can be rather conveniently, cheaply, and easily
    appropriated. Evangelical theology, on the other hand,
    is to be pursued in hope, though as a human work it is
    radically questioned by God, found guilty in God’s judgment and verdict-and though collapsing long before
    it reaches its goal, it relies on God who himself seeks out,
    heals, and saves man and his work. This God is the hope
    of theology.
    What we have just said about evangelical theology
    cannot be said about any of the theologies that are
    devoted to the gods of man’s devising. From beginning to end we have here spoken of the God of the Gospel.
    He is the object of theology, which is threatened in so
    many ways. He, who is its object, is also the one who
    menaces it. But when he does this, he is also the hope
    of theology. He puts it to shame, even to the uttermost
    extremes of shame. But he is its hope, he will vindicate
    the hope placed in him. He himself will protect theology,
    more than any other human work, from falling into
    utter disgrace.
    We say this simply in view of the fact that the God
    of the Gospel is the God who has acted and revealed
    himself in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God’s work and
    word. He is the fire of God’s love, by which all theological existence is consumed even more radically than all
    human existence. He is the Judge before whom all men
    can only fall and perish along with their knowledge and
    deeds-and this is known best by those who know Him
    best. Ecce homo! Behold the man ! It was in his person
    that Adam (and first and foremost the pious, learned,
    and wise Adam) was stamped as a transgressor, displayed in his nakedness, condemned, scourged, crucified,
    and killed. At the conclusion of this judgment, the storm
    of radical danger and judgment broke overwhelmingly
    upon him more than upon anyone before or after him,
    together with the distress of solitude, doubt, and temptation. He and he alone is the object of evangelical
    theology.
    If it is true that God in Jesus Christ is the object of
    theology, how could theological work be done other
    than in the shadow of the judgment passed upon man on
    the cross at Golgotha? If theology signifies and is the
    knowledge of God in him, for what else could it be
    determined other than to display the signs and tokens
    of the threat which first and foremost encountered and
    became transparent through him? Theological work suffers this danger in solidarity with the work of the
    community, as well as with all human work; yet it suffers
    it in a special way. Kierkegaard once mockingly asked,
    “What is a professor of theology?” and replied just as
    mockingly, “He is a professor because someone else was
    crucified.” That is indeed what the theologian must now
    pay for. If he tried to evade that or to escape the distress
    of his solitude, doubt, and temptation, what more would
    he have to do with Jesus Christ? To know God in Jesus
    Christ obviously has to include obeying the God who acts
    and reveals himself in Christ and who reconciles the
    world with himself in Him. This knowledge means following after Christ. Why should theology, as theologia
    crucis, not be willing to take up its own cross and suffering, which, in relation to Christ’s, are quite modest? Why
    should it not endure and bear, without grumbling and
    rebellion, whatever must be suffered in communion with
    him?
    But this is not all. Hidden deep beneath this inescapable No is God’s Yes as the meaning of his work and
    word. This Yes is the reconciliation of the world with
    God, the fulfillment of his covenant with men, which he
    has accomplished and revealed in Jesus Christ. Jesus
    Christ has carried out the judgment of all men, of their
    existence and actions. For he, the appointed judge of all
    men, delivered himself up for a unique ministry. He
    stepped into the place of those who were to be judged,
    and permitted himself to be judged for them and their
    liberation. The secret of the judgment carried out on
    Golgotha is actually not God’s rejection but his grace,
    not men’s destruction but their salvation. It is the new
    creation of a free man who lives in faithfulness that corresponds to God’s faithfulness, in peace with God and as
    a witness to his glory. The God who acts and reveals himself in the death of his dear Son forms, no doubt, a real and deathly peril, but he is also the vivifying hope of theological, as well as human and Christian, existence.
    Though it is hard to believe, it is true that Jesus Christ
    has, indeed, died for the theologians also, rising again
    from the dead in order to reveal this fact and to give
    substance to their hope. The theologians will have to
    abide by the fact that the living Jesus Christ, who is the
    foundation and object of their quest, who makes theology possible and rules and sustains it, is none other
    than he who was crucified. Ave crux unica spes mea!-
    Hail, 0 Cross, my sole hope ! When theology holds fast
    to this fact, it can, may, and will be also a theologia
    gloriae, a theology of glory in faithfulness to its character as theologia crucis. It may be a theology of hope
    in the glory of the children of God, a glory that is already revealed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and
    is to be revealed anew, at the very last, for the benefit
    of all creatures and, therefore, also for theology and its
    work. Gazing toward him who is the hope of imperiled
    theology, the theologians are permitted, along with all
    other men, to lift up their heads. “If we have died with
    Christ, we believe [we trust] that we shall also live with
    him” (Rom. 6:8). Since their death is not separated
    from, but in communion with, him, their life is also not
    separated from, but in communion with, him. They build
    on a firm foundation if they work in profound happiness
    as well as in profound terror. Since they are his followers,
    they are with him, but as well they are also deeply humbled and deeply comforted by him. The theologian will
    then act not only with “a bit of bravery” concerning the
    solitude, doubt, and temptation that he must still endure
    so long as his hope in the Lord remains hidden by the
    exposure of his work to great danger; he will also know
    how to endure and bear all this in alacritas, hilaritas,
    and even laetitia spiritualis (to speak with Calvin), in alacrity, hilarity, and spiritual joy, in the joyousness of
    the Holy Spirit. He will endure all this as the No which
    is nevertheless only the husk of the Yes, a Yes which is
    valid even for him at this very time and place and which,
    at the last, will break through with irresistible power.
    Theological work is the leading theme of the fourth and
    final series of these lectures. In the first series we discussed the special place that is assigned theology by its
    object; in the second series, the manner of existence of
    the theologian; and in the third series, the danger to
    which theology and the theologian are exposed. In the
    remaining four lectures our attention will be occupied
    by what must be done, performed, and accomplished in
    theology.
    At the outset, two things must be obvious after all
    that has immediately preceded this lecture. First, all
    theological work can be undertaken and accomplished
    only amid great distress, which assails it on all sides.
    But though this distress may befall theology from
    within and without, it is ultimately caused by the object
    of theology itself. Without judgment and death there
    is no grace and no life for anybody or anything, and,
    least of all, for theology. For this reason there is no
    courage in theology without humility, no exaltation
    without abasement, no courageous deeds without the
    knowledge that by our power alone nothing at all can
    be done. But secondly, theological work should be boldly
    begun and carried forward because, hidden in the great
    distress in which alone it can take place, its still greater
    hope and impulse are present. Precisely in judgment is
    grace displayed and granted; precisely in death is life
    awakened and sustained. Precisely in humility may
    courage be taken. In theology, precisely he who abases
    himself is he who may, indeed must, rise up. Precisely
    the knowledge that by our own power nothing at all can
    be accomplished, allows and requires courageous action.
    Wherever theology becomes and remains faithful to its object, both God’s grace and God’s judgment, and consequently both the sinner’s death and his salvation,
    must be taken equally seriously. In spite of all solitude
    and doubt, theology will be faithful to its object only
    and precisely when it allows itself to be tempted by it.
    While theological work is in great danger arising from
    judgment and sin, it is yet to be undertaken with still
    greater hope in grace and salvation. While in the following we shall certainly continue keeping the first in sight,
    what concerns us in the last lectures is specifically the
    second member of these contrasting pairs.
    The first and basic act of theological work is prayer.
    Prayer must, therefore, be the keynote of all that remains to be discussed. Undoubtedly, from the very
    beginning and without intermission, theological work is
    also study; in every respect it is also service; and finally
    it would certainly be in vain were it not also an act of
    love. But theological work does not merely begin with
    prayer and is not merely accompanied by it; in its
    totality it is peculiar and characteristic of theology that
    it can be performed only in the act of prayer. In view
    of the danger to which theology is exposed and to the
    hope that is enclosed within its work, it is natural that
    without prayer there can be no theological work. We
    should keep in mind the fact that prayer, as such, is
    work ; in fact, very hard work, although in its execution
    the hands are most fittingly not moved but folded. Where
    theology is concerned, the rule Ora et labora! is valid
    under all circumstances-pray and work ! And the gist
    of this rule is not merely that orare, although it should
    be the beginning, would afterward be only incidental to
    the execution of the laborare. The rule means, moreover,
    that the laborare itself, and as such, is essentially an
    orare. Work must be that sort of act that has the manner
    and meaning of a prayer in all its dimensions, relationships, and movements.
    Some of the most significant dimensions of the unity
    of prayer and theological work are the following:
31. Proper and useful theological work is distinguished
    by the fact that it takes place in a realm which not only
    has open windows (which in themselves are admittedly
    good and necessary) facing the surrounding life of the
    Church and world, but also and above all has a skylight.
    That is to say, theological work is opened by heaven and
    God’s work and word, but it is also open toward heaven
    and God’s work and word. It cannot possibly be taken
    for granted that this work is performed in this open
    realm, open toward the object of theology, its source
    and goal, and in this way open toward its great menace
    and the still greater hope which is founded upon its
    object. If theological work should attempt to hide itself
    from danger and hope, it would soon find itself locked
    in a closed, barred, stuffy, and unlit room. In itself, the
    realm of theology is no larger and better than the realm
    of human questions and answers, human inquiry,
    thought, and speech. What theologian is there who is not
    continually surprised to find, even when he endeavors
    wholly and perhaps very seriously to press forward to
    relatively true and important insights and statements,
    that he is moving about in a human, all too human,
    circle like a squirrel in a cage? He may be listening more
    and more attentively to the witness of the Bible, and
    understanding more and more lucidly the confessions
    of faith, the voices of the Church fathers and of contemporaries, all the time combining these with the required openness to the world. As he lingers here and there
    on different occasions, he may, no doubt, come upon problems that are certainly interesting, or perceptions that
    are thought provoking or even exciting. The only flaw
    is that the whole subject (and, as a result, each particular
    topic as well) does not begin to shed light or to take on
    contours and constant features. In that case it makes no difference whether the theologian is totally devoted to
    his cause or whether the windows are opened as wide as
    possible on all sides; his whole subject, nevertheless,
    refuses to display its unity, necessity, helpfulness, and
    beauty.
    What, then, is lacking? The flaw is that however industriously he labors at his work or however widely and
    broadly it may be extended, the theologian exists basically alone in all his work. His work takes place in an
    area that unfortunately is vertically sealed off ; it neither
    receives nor beholds light from above. It opens no skylight toward heaven. What can and must happen to
    remedy this predicament?
    A special measure must obviously be taken ; the circular movement must be interrupted ; a Sabbath day
    must be inserted and celebrated. The purpose of the
    Sabbath is not to eliminate the working days or to divest
    them of their proper tasks, but rather to obtain for them
    precisely the light from above which they lack. How can
    this happen? What can and should happen is that the
    theologian for a moment should turn away from all his
    efforts in the performance of the intellectus fidei. At such
    a moment he can and should turn exclusively toward the
    object of theology, himself, to God. But what else is such
    a turning to God than the turning of prayer? For in
    prayer a man temporarily turns away from his own efforts. This move is necessary precisely for the sake of the
    duration and continuation of his own work. Every
    prayer has its beginning when a man puts himself
    (together with his best and most accomplished work)
    out of the picture. He leaves himself and his work behind in order once again to recollect that he stands
    before God. How could he ever find it unnecessary to
    recollect this fact continually and anew? He stands
    before the God who, in his work and word, is man’s Lord,
    Judge, and Saviour. He recognizes also that this God stands before him, or rather draws near to him, in His
    work and word. This is the mighty, holy, and merciful
    God who is the great threat and the still greater hope of
    man’s work.
    Prayer begins with the movement in which a man
    wishes and seeks to win new clarity about the fact that
    “God is the one who rules.” A man prays, not in order
    to sacrifice his work or even to neglect it, but in order
    that it may not remain or become unfruitful work, so
    that he may do it under the illumination and, consequently, under the rule and blessing of God. As much
    as any other work, theological work is encouraged and
    directed to begin with this conscious movement of
    prayer. He who wants to do this responsibly and hopefully must know clearly who the one is who is both the
    threat and the hope of theology. Specifically, the question and inquiry about God will always demand and
    form a special activity. Other activities must retreat behind this one for a while (just as the activities of the
    week retreat behind the activity of the Sabbath). They
    do this just in order to be proper activities in their own
    right. They are disclosed and set in the proper light
    by prayer.
32. The object of theological work is not some thing
    but some one. He is not a highest or absolute something
    (even if this were “the ground of Being,” or the like).
    This object is not an “It” but a “He.” And He, this One,
    exists not as an idle and mute being for Himself, but
    precisely in His work which is also His Word.
    The task of theological work consists in listening to
    Him, this One who speaks through His work, and in
    rendering account of His Word to oneself, the Church,
    and the world. Primarily and decisively, however, theological work must recognize and demonstrate that the
    Word of this One is no neutral announcement, but
    rather the critical moment of history and the com munion between God and man. This Word is God’s address to men. “I am the Lord your God, who led you out
    of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You
    shall have no other gods before me.” Only as such an address can this Word be spoken and heard, and only
    as such is it the Word of the truth of God’s work, the
    truth of God himself. For this reason all human thought
    and speech in relation to God can have only the character of a response to be made to God’s Word.
    Human thought and speech cannot be about God, but
    must be directed toward God, called into action by the
    divine thought and speech directed to men, and following
    and corresponding to this work of God. Human thought
    and speech would certainly be false if they bound themselves to a divine “It” or “something,” since God is a
    person and not a thing. But human thought and speech
    concerning God could also be false and would at any
    rate be unreal if they related themselves to him in the
    third person. What is essential for human language is to
    speak of men in the first person and of God in the
    second person. True and proper language concerning
    God will always be a response to God, which overtly or
    covertly, explicitly or implicitly, thinks and speaks of
    God exclusively in the second person. And this means
    that theological work must really and truly take place
    in the form of a liturgical act, as invocation of God, and
    as prayer.
    There remains a veil of theological thought and speech
    in the third person, but this veil always affords a glimpse
    beyond itself. In a direct unveiling of this situation,
    Anselm of Canterbury surpassed the first form of his
    doctrine of God (which was called and was a “Monologion”) by a second form, which he called a “Proslo-
    gion”! In this second work he actually unfolded all that
    he had to say concerning God’s existence and essence in
    the form of direct address to God, as a single prayer from beginning to end. And at the beginning of the
    eighteenth century, obviously in recollection of the
    same fact, the Lutheran David Hollaz made at least the
    conclusion of every single article of his dogmatics a
    Suspirium, a sigh of explicit prayer. Any theology
    which would not even consider the necessity to respond
    to God personally could only be false theology. It would
    exchange what is real for what is unreal if it did not
    unfailingly keep sight of this I-Thou relationship in
    which God is man’s God and man is God’s man. Implicitly and explicitly, proper theology will have to be a
    Proslogion, Suspirium, or prayer. It will meditate on the
    fact that God can be its object only because he is the acting and speaking subject upon whom all depends. Every
    liturgical movement in the Church arrives too late if its
    theology is not itself a liturgical movement from the
    very beginning, if it is not set in motion by Proskynesis,
    i.e., by adoration.
33. Theological work is distinguished from other kinds
    of work by the fact that anyone who desires to do this
    work cannot proceed by building with complete confidence on the foundation of questions that are already
    settled, results that are already achieved, or conclusions that are already arrived at. He cannot continue to
    build today in any way on foundations that were laid
    yesterday by himself, and he cannot live today in any
    way on the interest from a capital amassed yesterday.
    His only possible procedure every day, in fact every
    hour, is to begin anew at the beginning. And in this
    respect theological work can be exemplary for all intellectual work. Yesterday’s memories can be comforting
    and encouraging for such work only if they are identical
    with the recollection that this work, even yesterday, had
    to begin at the beginning and, it is to be hoped, actually
    began there. In theological science, continuation always
    means “beginning once again at the beginning.” In view of the radical exposure of this science to danger,
    this is obviously the only possible way. The endangering of theology is strong enough to cut the ground away
    from under the feet of the theologian time and again
    and to compel him to look around anew for ground on
    which he can stand as if he had never stood on such
    ground before. And above all, the ever-new start is the
    only possible way because the object of theology is the
    living God himself in his free grace, Israel’s protector
    who neither slumbers nor sleeps. It makes no difference
    whether theological work is done with attention to the
    witness of Scriptures, with the reassuring connection
    to the communio sanctorum of all times, and certainly
    also with a thankful memory of the knowledge previously
    attained by theology. If God’s goodness is new every
    morning, it is also every morning a fully undeserved
    goodness which must give rise to new gratitude and renewed desire for it.
    For this reason every act of theological work must
    have the character of an offering in which everything
    is placed before the living God. This work will be such
    an offering in all its dimensions, even if it involves the
    tiniest problem of exegesis or dogmatics, or the clarification of the most modest fragment of the history of
    the Church of Jesus Christ, but, above all, if it is the
    preparation of a sermon, lesson, or Bible study. In this
    act of offering, every goal that previously was pursued,
    every knowledge that previously had been won, and,
    above all, every method that was previously practiced
    and has supposedly proved its worth, must be thrown
    into the cauldron once again, delivered up to the living
    God, and proffered to him as a total sacrifice.
    Theological work cannot be done on any level or in
    any respect other than by freely granting the free God
    room to dispose at will over everything that men may
    already have known, produced, and achieved, and over all the religious, moral, intellectual, spiritual, or divine
    equipage with which men have traveled. In the present
    continuation of what was won yesterday, the continuity
    between yesterday and today and between today and
    tomorrow must be submitted to God’s care, judgment,
    and disposing. Theology can only be a really free and
    happy science in a continually new performance of this
    voluntary offering. If it does not want to succumb to
    hardening of the arteries, barrenness, and stubborn fatigue, its work should at no step of the way become a
    routine or be done as if it were the action of an automaton. Because it has to be ever renewed, ever original,
    ever ready to be judged by God himself and by God
    alone, theology must be an act of prayer. The work of
    theology is done when nothing else is accomplished but
    the humble confession, “Not as I will, but as thou willest !”
    This prayer and confession will not harm the readiness and willingness with which a man accepts the task
    of a theologian, in performing the requirements of the
    intellectus fidei, to seek the truth, to inquire and think
    about it, to crack the hard nuts, and to split the thick
    logs of the problems facing him. The purpose of the
    ever-new subjection of theology and of the theologian to
    God’s will and judgment is simply this: the intellectus
    fidei should be, remain, and ever again become a human
    work that is vigorous, fresh, interesting, and helpful.
    It is a fact that this work can be and is done with vigor
    only when it is done not in some sort of rearmament
    over against its object but in the undaunted disarmament and capitulation to its object-that is to say, in
    the work of prayer.
34. We now approach what is, in practical terms, the
    most tangible and also, objectively, the decisive point.
    Theological work is done in the form of human ques tions and answers. It is a seeking and finding with
    respect to the work and word of God.
    Two problems unmistakably arise here with respect
    to the possibility of accomplishing this work. One stems
    from the side of the “subjective,” the other from that of
    the “objective.” Both are related and bound to one another. Both are problems of the living communion between God and man and man and God, and for this
    reason they can be solved pragmatically, never ideally,
    only in the history of this communion.
    On the one hand (subjectively) there is the problem of
    the appropriateness and capability of human acts. Is this
    matter really taken up by a man with the purity of
    heart, serious intentions, clear head, and good conscience which are appropriate to it and which alone
    give this whole undertaking promise? In what situation, and for what theologian, could this question be
    positively answered other than by saying : God’s grace
    is powerful enough to give even a man’s impure heart,
    hesitant will, weak head, and bad conscience the capacity to ask and answer meaningfully with respect to
    God and his work and word. But is this grace shown
    to this man? And on the other hand (objectively) there
    is the problem of the presence of God in his self-disclosure, without which even the most earnest questions
    and answers with respect to him would necessarily be
    void of an object, and therefore in vain. Once again,
    this problem can be positively answered only by saying :
    God’s grace is free and powerful enough for this work
    too. God will do it himself. But will grace really occur
    in this sense? In this, as in the former case, grace
    would obviously not be grace if there was any reason
    to assume that grace-God making man receptive for
    him and himself for man-will automatically or necessarily occur. If grace is what occurs there, God can only
    be appealed to for it, entreated for it, and called upon for its demonstration. Only when theological work begins
    with this entreaty can it be risked in view of these two
    problems. Only when it is upheld by this supplication and
    repeatedly returns to it can theological work be done with
    prospects of possible fulfillment. What God will be asked
    for is the wondrous thing, that man’s blind eyes and deaf
    ears may be opened, that he may be permitted to do and
    to hear God’s work and word. And, at the same time,
    something still more wonderful will be sought by
    prayer : that God’s work and word may not be withdrawn, but may, instead, be disclosed to the eyes and ears
    of this man. Gazing upon himself, Anselm prayed :
    Revela me de me ad te! Da mihi, ut intelligam!
    (Reveal me from myself to thee! Grant that I may
    understand!) And gazing upon God : Redde to mihi! Da
    to ipsum mihi, Deus mews! (Restore thyself to me!
    Give thyself to me, my God!) In the performance of
    theological work the realization of this double act of
    God (together with this double entreaty) is necessary
    throughout, since God’s act in both respects can occur
    only as his free act of grace and wondrousness.
    Properly understood, this act is still only a single
    one, the very one which we called to mind at the end of
    our fifth lecture : Veni, Creator Spiritus! In his movements from below to above and from above to below, the
    one Holy Spirit achieves the opening of God for man
    and the opening of man for God. Theological work,
    therefore, lives by and in the petition for his coming.
    All its questions, inquiries, reflections, and declarations
    can only be forms of this petition. And only in God’s
    hearing of this entreaty is theological work at any time
    a successful and useful work. Only so can it, in its total
    endangering and its total dependence on God’s free
    grace, serve to the glory of God and the salvation of
    men. God hears genuine prayer ! And the criterion of the
    genuineness of this prayer is that it will be made in certainty that it will be heard. If this petition were born
    of skepticism, how should the speaker really know what
    he is doing when he entreats the Father in the name of
    the Son for the Holy Spirit? The certainty that this
    petition will be heard is consequently also the certainty
    in which theological work may and should be courageously started and performed.
    In prayer, theological work is the inner, spiritual, and
    vertically directed motion of man ; while in study, although similarly external, it runs in a horizontal direction. It is also an intellectual, psychical, and physical, if
    not fleshly, movement. Theological work can be done
    only in the indissoluble unity of prayer and study.
    Prayer without study would be empty. Study without
    prayer would be blind. We are obliged now, since our
    consideration of prayer is completed, to attempt an interpretation of study.
    In the sense that interests us, “study” is an undertaking to be pursued earnestly, zealously, and industriously; it is, in fact, a definite intellectual task objectively set for the theologian and other men. Study demands human participation, vigorously pressed forward
    because of man’s impulse, free inclination, and desire
    to complete the given task. These qualifications determine who and what is or is not a studiosus and, in particular, a studiosus theologiae, a student of theology.
    A definite intellectual task is set for the theologian
    and others by the Gospel, by the work and word of God
    which are attested to in the Holy Scriptures and proclaimed in the communia sanctorum of every day and
    age. If this task were not set for him, or if he should
    mistake and exchange it for another task (such as that
    of the philosopher, historian, or psychologist), he might
    still be a studiosus, but he would no longer be a studiosus
    theologiae. He would also cease to be a student of theology were he not devoted to his task with the characteristic impetus and impulse already described. A
    lazy student, even as a theologian, is no student at all !
    It is well to clarify and expose two other self-evident
    matters which should be taken for granted.
    First of all, theological study and the impulse which
    compels it are not passing stages of life. The forms
    which this study assumes may and must change slightly
    with the times. But the theologian, if he was in fact a
    studiosus theologiae, remains so even to his death.
    (Schleiermacher, it is reported, even in his old age, prefixed his signature at times with the usual German
    designation “stud. theol.”)
    Secondly, no one should study merely in order to pass
    an examination, to become a pastor, or in order to gain
    an academic degree. When properly understood, an examination is a friendly conversation of older students of
    theology with younger ones, concerning certain themes
    in which they share a common interest. The purpose of
    this conversation is to give younger participants an
    opportunity to exhibit whether and to what extent they
    have exerted themselves, and to what extent they appear
    to give promise of doing so in the future. The real value of
    a doctorate, even when earned with the greatest distinction, is totally dependent on the degree to which its recipient has conducted and maintained himself as a
    learner. Its worth depends, as well, entirely on the extent to which he further conducts and maintains himself
    as such. Only by his qualification as a learner can he show
    himself qualified to become a teacher. Whoever studies
    theology does so because to study it is (quite apart from
    any personal aims of the student) necessary, good, and
    beautiful in relationship to the service to which he has
    been called. Theology must possess him so completely
    that he can be concerned with it only in the manner of a
    studiosus.
    Theological study is the contact (whether it be direct
    or literary) and meaningful union of pupils with their teachers-teachers who, for their part, were pupils of
    their own teachers. Such a regressive sequence continues until one reaches those teachers whose only
    chance and desire was to be the pupils of the immediate
    witnesses to the history of Jesus Christ which brought
    the history of Israel to its fulfillment. Theological study
    consists, therefore, in active participation in the work
    of that comprehensive community of teachers and
    learners which is found in the school of the immediate
    witnesses to the work and word of God.
    The instruction which someone today receives from
    lectures, seminars, or books can be only a first and preliminary step. Such instruction can be merely an admission to the school where the theological student now
    hears and reads and in which, before him, his own
    teachers have listened, spoken, and written, gaining their
    knowledge, exchanging it with one another, transmitting and receiving it from one another. Ultimately
    and in its most decisive aspect, today’s instruction is but
    an introduction to the source and norm of all theology :
    namely, the testimony of the Scriptures. Every predecessor of today’s student has already attempted to
    understand and explain the Scriptures-in his own
    period, in his own way, and with his own limitations.
    To study theology means not so much to examine exhaustively the work of earlier students of theology as
    to become their fellow student. It means to become and
    to remain receptive, for they still speak, even though
    they may have died long ago. Serious study means to
    permit oneself to be stimulated by the views and insights they achieved and proclaimed, and to be guidedby their encouraging or frightening example-toward a
    perspective, thought, and speech which are responsible
    to God and man. But above all, theological study means
    to follow in their footsteps and to turn to the source
    from which they themselves were nourished, to the norm to which they had already, properly, and unqualifiedly
    subjected themselves. It means to hear the original
    testimony which made teachers out of pupils. It was to
    this norm that one’s predecessors in theological study
    subordinated and directed themselves, so far as they
    were able.
    In the light of the foregoing, theological study will
    have to be divided into two parts. We call them a primary and a secondary conversation. In the first conversation the student, whether he be young or old, will (like
    all students who preceded him) have to inquire directly
    into what the prophets of the Old Testament and the
    apostles of the New Testament have to say to the world,
    to the community of the present day, and to himself as
    a member of the community. In the secondary conversation the student must permit himself indirectly to be
    given the necessary directions and admonitions for the
    journey toward the answer which he seeks. Such secondary instructions are gained from theologians of the
    past, the recent past, and from his immediate antecedents-through examination of their biblical exegesis and dogmatics and their historical and practical
    inquiries. Even though he may be the most recent student of theology, he must follow in this path, for he is
    not the first, but, for the time being, the most contemporary of all students. No one, however, should
    ever confuse this secondary conversation with the primary one, lest he lose the forest for the trees. In such
    an eventuality, he would no longer be able to hear the
    echo of divine revelation in the Scriptures, for the
    sheer volume of patristic, scholastic, reformation, and,
    above all, modern academic voices would drown it out.
    On the other hand, no one should imagine himself so
    inspired or otherwise clever and wise that he can conduct the primary discussion by his own powers, dispens ing with all secondary discussion with the fathers and
    brothers of the Church.
    It scarcely needs to be added that theological study
    requires in this matter extraordinarily alert and circumspect attention. Theological study must always engage simultaneously in both the primary and secondary
    conversation. It must constantly distinguish both of
    these properly, but it must also properly combine them.
    Certainly an entire lifetime is not too long to gain and
    to apply some measure of this necessary attention and
    circumspection.
    We shall now attempt a general survey of the different fields and areas of theological study, the so-called
    “departments” and “disciplines” of theological inquiry.
    The first discipline to be named is obviously that of
    biblical exegesis. Exegesis of the Bible should not be
    simply identified with what we have just called the
    primary conversation that theology must conduct, for
    the hearing, understanding, and application of the biblical message is much more than an incidental presupposition of theological work. It is the fundamental task
    of all theological study. Reading or explaining biblical
    texts is, however, a special task. Since true understanding of the Bible is a problem continually posed anew,
    theology is originally and especially the science of the
    Old and New Testaments. The Old and New Testaments
    are the collections of the texts in which the community
    of Jesus Christ perpetually found itself summoned to
    hear the voice of the original testimony to God’s work
    and word. This unique testimony is the source and norm
    of the community’s doctrine and life. But the community must hear this voice anew at every moment.
    For the fulfillment of this task, the science of biblical
    theology is indispensable. All too many things can be
    imprecisely or even wrongly heard (or perhaps not even heard at all). The science of biblical theology must
    clarify, with ever renewed impartiality and care, what
    is actually written in the Scriptures and what is meant
    by all that is written.
    Two presuppositions will make themselves felt in
    biblical exegesis.
    The first presupposition of biblical theology is held in
    common with all historical-critical research, for the
    biblical texts are subject to the scrutiny of that research as much as they are to the scrutiny of the theologian. In order to read and understand the Bible,
    biblical theology must conscientiously employ all known
    and available means, all the rules and criteria that are
    applicable to grammar, linguistics, and style, as well
    as all the knowledge gathered in the comparative study
    of the history of the world, of culture, and of literature.
    The second presupposition, although it belongs basically to the historical-critical type as well, is not yet, by
    any means, generally accepted by nontheological historical scientists. For this reason, its demands are respected more strictly in theological exegesis than by
    historical critics. However isolated from other sciences
    theological exegesis may become, this second presupposition is essential for its work. Theological exegesis presupposes that alongside the many texts extant in the
    world’s literature, there may also be texts that, according to the intention of their authors and according to
    their actual character, require that they be read and
    explained as attestation and proclamation of a divine
    action and speech which have reportedly or really taken
    place in the midst of general history. It is presupposed
    that unless such texts are evaluated in faithfulness to
    this character, their real intention will inevitably be
    missed. Beyond what such texts say, in conformance
    to this special character, they can-so theological exegesis assumes-yield no essential information. The assumption that they call for any subsequent inquiry
    into facts-facts which might lie concealed behind their
    message or which might have been alienated from their
    original character and meaning by the prophets’ and
    apostles’ “interpretation,” or which would have been previously independent of this interpretation and ought now
    to be singled out and presented according to their true
    nature-is by-passed. Theological exegesis presupposes
    that the existence of these texts makes the success of such
    an inquiry practically impossible. It presupposes that
    there are texts whose statements (if they are understood at all) can be endorsed by their readers only with
    unbelief, i.e., with a milder or sharper form of skepticism, or with faith. But the skeptics among those historically-critically minded have to be asked : Why should
    there not also be, according to their own sober historicalcritical judgment, texts that are purely kerygmatic and
    that can be fittingly interpreted only as such? The science
    of biblical theology presupposes that it has to deal with
    such texts, particularly in the Old and New Testaments.
    What these texts express can no doubt be objectively
    perceived, much like the content of all other texts in
    world literature. But to be understood in their own
    sense, the biblical texts call for either the No of unbelief or the Yes of faith. These texts can only be explained objectively by constant reference to their kerygmatic character. The science of biblical theology does
    not work in empty space but in the service of the community of Jesus Christ, which is founded by prophetic
    and apostolic testimony. It is precisely for this reason
    that it approaches these texts with a specific expectation. (Nothing more than this should be said, but also
    nothing less!)
    Biblical theology expects that testimony to the God
    who calls for faith will confront it in these texts. Nevertheless, it remains unreservedly open to such questions as: Will this expectation be fulfilled? (This is precisely
    what is involved in the so-called “hermeneutical
    circle.”) To what extent, in what form, and through
    what concrete expressions will the uniqueness which
    these texts possess for the community confirm itself?
    Is such exegesis “dogmatic” exegesis? An affirmative
    answer has to be given only to the extent that the
    science of theological exegesis rejects, at the outset,
    every dogma which might forbid it the expectation just
    mentioned and might declare, from the very beginning,
    its vindication to be impossible. Again, is this “pneumatic” exegesis? Certainly not, in so far as such exegesis might suppose it was able to dispose over the
    Scriptures on the basis of some imagined spiritual
    power that it possesses. But it may be called “pneumatic” to the extent that it uses the freedom, founded
    upon the Scriptures themselves, to address to them
    seriously, ultimately, and definitively a strict question
    about the Spirit’s own testimony heard in them.
    The second task of theological study is concerned, in
    particular, with what we have termed the secondary
    conversation. Without this secondary discussion, of
    course, neither biblical exegesis nor study in any other
    area of theology can be carried out. What is involved
    is the study of the history of the Church, of her theoretical and practical life, her actions and confessions,
    and thus of her theology. What is involved is the long
    journey which Christian knowledge-this fundamental
    element of community life-has undertaken and accomplished from the days of the prophets and apostles
    until the present day. Since the history of the Church
    unmistakably and continually participates in secular or
    world history, and since just as unmistakably it is also a
    sector of world history formed by the biblical message
    from which it arises, so it must be examined in the same
    manner as these. It is a history of belief, unbelief, false belief, and superstition ; a history of the proclamation
    and of the denial of Jesus Christ, of deformations and
    renewals of the Gospel, of obedience which Christianity
    offered this Gospel or which was openly or secretly
    denied it. The history of the Church, of dogmas, and of
    theology is necessarily, from the perspective of this
    community of saints and sinners, an object of theological study. Moreover, the community of every contemporary age is included in the ranks of this great community and must be assessed by the same criteria.
    One condition for the fruitfulness of such inquiry is
    that the gaze of the inquirer come to rest and remain
    immovably fixed upon the concretissimum of the theme
    of this history. Although his gaze is fixed there, he
    maintains, nevertheless, a spirited and loving openness
    to every particular of that great event, an openness that
    overlooks none of its lights and none of its shadows. If
    anyone is unfamiliar with this theme and fails to keep
    it in view, how can he be able to understand and narrate
    Church history? The other condition is that Gottfried
    Arnold’s splendid program of an “Impartial History of
    the Church and of Heretics” should be carried out
    more successfully. Reversing the method that was usual
    up to his time, Arnold took up only the cause of the heretics against the Church, instead of supporting, as well,
    the Church against the heretics.
    The theological science of history does not desire to
    pass judgment on the world. It will also not attempt, by
    taking over some guiding principle from a philosophical
    system (in the way that the great F. Christian Baur, in
    particular, attempted it), to master the history of the
    community in the time between the first and the final
    coming of the Lord. It will be obliged simply to observe
    and exhibit how and to what extent all that has happened and continues to happen in the history of the
    community was and is flesh-flesh that is as grass or as the flower of the field (Is. 40:6). This flesh is transitory-its essence is that it passes by and passes away.
    But since God is the origin and the goal of this passing
    history, the events of Church history are never completely bare of forgiveness and void of hope in the
    resurrection of the flesh. The theological science of
    history will calmly refrain from any total glorification
    of one element of the community’s history or any total
    disqualification of another. Instead, it will weep with
    those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. It
    will simply let all those who lived, thought, spoke, and
    labored before us speak for themselves. When, for the
    benefit of the present community, the community’s
    earlier life is studied and illumined in this way, the theological science of history will also serve, in a secondary
    and subsidiary manner, the future gathering, consolidation, and sending forth of the community.
    The name that has become usual for the third principal discipline of theological study, “systematic theology,”
    is a contradiction in terms. In the study of dogmatics
    and ethics, which concerns us here, there is at any rate
    no justification for the construction and proclamation
    of a system of Christian truth developed out of some
    definite conceptualization of it. What should rule in
    the community is not a concept or a principle, but solely
    the Word of God attested to in the Scriptures and vivified by the Holy Spirit.
    What is involved in the science devoted to this Word
    is not merely the acknowledgment of this Word by study
    of Holy Scriptures and by the accompanying knowledge
    of the past. This Word must be considered, in fact properly considered and meditated upon. The inner relationship,
    the clarity, and the lucidity with which it presents itself
    at each particular moment will be pondered. “Proper”
    consideration does not mean an inclusive, conclusive,
    and exclusive process, as the word “systematic” could easily lead one to suppose. Proper dogmatics and ethics
    neither include, conclude, nor exclude; rather, like biblical exegesis and Church history, they form a science that
    creates openings and is itself open. At every present moment and under all circumstances, this science awaits
    and hopes for a future consideration of the Word of God
    that should be better-that is, that should be truer and
    more comprehensive-than all that is possible at
    this time. Dogmatics and ethics, moreover, cannot be
    proper in the sense that they might consider and interpret the Word of God according to the criteria offered
    either by a philosophy that is acknowledged by most
    people at any one time, or by certain wishes, claims, and
    postulates which ecclesiastical authorities might proclaim as valid. Dogmatics and ethics must function properly by considering the Word of God and by holding
    fast to the order, formation, architectonics, and theology
    prescribed at given times by this Word itself. They are
    proper when they make this order visible and valid for
    their time or for the path of knowledge pursued by the
    community of their time. They think freely, and they
    summon the community, for its part, to think and speak
    freely in that area of freedom granted it at given times
    by the Word of God. When study of so-called systematic
    theology has the purpose of continually recognizing this
    order anew, then theology may even be service for and in
    the community that is occupied with this task. When
    theology works for the attainment, maintenance, and
    spreading of the freedom founded on this order, then it
    serves the cause of appropriate action, proper renewal,
    and purification, as well as concentration and clarification of the statements which must be made in the community’s proclamation.
    Last of all, “practical theology” is, as the name implies, theology in transition to the practical work of the
    community-to proclamation. By mentioning practical theology at the end, we do not suggest that we regard
    it, speaking with Schleiermacher, as the “crown” of
    theological study nor as a merely optional appendage
    to the other theological disciplines. When practical theology is considered as a strictly human endeavor, we find
    ourselves, as in the other disciplines, on the periphery of
    theology’s task. But when considered with respect to its
    object, we find ourselves, as we do in other disciplines,
    at the heart of the matter.
    The special area of the problem of practical theology
    is what is today somewhat bombastically termed the
    “language event.” Quite unsuitably, it is then customarily presented as the basic problem of exegesis and, if
    possible, also of dogmatics. But this event has its proper
    place here, only in practical theology. The question of
    practical theology is how the Word of God may be
    served by human words. How can this Word, which has
    been perceived in the testimony of the Bible and of
    Church history and has been considered in its contemporary self-presentation, be served also through the
    community for the benefit of the world that surrounds
    it? What is involved is not the idle question of how those
    who proclaim this Word should “approach” this or that
    modern man, or how they should “bring home” the Word
    of God to him. Instead, the real question is how they
    have to serve this Word by pointing to its coming. This
    Word has never been “brought home” to any man except
    by its own freedom and power.
    The real question is the problem of the language
    which must be employed by those who undertake to proclaim this Word. Their speech will have to meet two
    conditions. In order to be an indication of God’s Word to
    men, it must have the character of a declaration. And
    in order to be an indication of God’s Word to men, it
    must have the character of an address. This speech can be proclamation of this Word only when it expresses
    itself quite exceptionally (as required by the source
    which inspires it) and at the same time quite ordinarily
    (to fit its purpose). It must speak in solemn and in commonplace tones, both sacredly and profanely. It tells
    of the history of Israel and of Jesus Christ, and it tells
    this to the life and action of Christians, Jews, and other
    contemporary men.
    Theological speech is taught its content by exegesis
    and dogmatics, and it is given its form through the experiences of whatever psychology, sociology, or linguistics may be most trustworthy at a given moment.
    It is the language of Canaan and at the same time it is
    Egyptian or Babylonian language, or whatever the
    contemporary “modern” dialect may be. It always takes
    the direction from the first of these to the second, for it
    must point to the Word that goes forth from God and
    goes to man. But it never claims the first without the
    second, and certainly not the second without the first, for
    it must always contain both. Practical theology is studied
    in order to seek and to find, to learn and to practice, this
    speech that is essential to the proclamation of the community in preaching and teaching, in worship and evangelization. For these reasons practical theology must also
    be studied as long as one lives.
    In conclusion, one marginal comment is needed about
    the entire theme of study. All those on the right or on the
    left, whose spirits are all too cheerful and naive, may and
    should repeatedly discover anew in the study of theology
    that everything theological is somewhat more complicated than they would like it to be. But those spirits who
    are all too melancholic and hypercritical should discover
    and rediscover that everything here is also much more
    simple than they, with deeply furrowed brow, thought
    necessary to suppose.
    Theological work is service. In general terms, service
    is a willing, working, and doing in which a person acts
    not according to his own purposes or plans but with a
    view to the purpose of another person and according to
    the need, disposition, and direction of others. It is an
    act whose freedom is limited and determined by the
    other’s freedom, an act whose glory becomes increasingly greater to the extent that the doer is not concerned about his own glory but about the glory of the
    other. Such a serving act is the work of the theologian,
    whether this work is prayer or study or both simultaneously. Once again defined in general terms, it is ministerium Verbi divini, which means, literally, “a servant’s
    attendance on the divine Word.” The expression “attendance” may call to mind the fact that the New Testament concept of Diakonos originally meant “a waiter.”
    The theologian must wait upon the high majesty of the
    divine Word, which is God himself as he speaks in his
    action. There is no better description of the freedom and
    honor of the theologian’s action than the notable image
    in Psalm 123: “Behold, as the eyes of servants look to
    the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the
    hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our
    God, till he have mercy upon us.” Theological work is
    a concentrated action by the very fact that it is also
    eccentrically oriented toward its telos, or goal. We must
    now attempt to understand it with respect to this inalienable and characteristic orientation.
    In Calvin’s famous classification of the ecclesiastical
    ministry the “deacon” occupies only the fourth and
    last place; what is allotted him is “only” to provide for
    the community’s poor and sick. The “presbyter” pre cedes him and is responsible for the external conduct
    of the life of the community. He, in turn, is preceded by
    the “pastor,” who is the preacher, instructor, and community parson. At the head of Calvin’s ecclesiastical
    hierarchy, however, there is the “doctor,” the teacher
    of the Church who, ex officio, interprets and explains
    the Scriptures. Obviously, he is, in particular, the theologian. Calvin certainly did not intend this classification to be as static as it appears or as it has frequently
    been understood and practiced. In any case, the doctor
    ecclesiae and the theologian, as the leading figures, will
    find it not only advisable but also necessary to become
    speedily, according to the Gospel, the last figure-the
    servant, waiter, and “deacon” for all the others. On the
    other hand, a fact also worthy of note is that the “waiting” of the martyr Stephen and of a certain Philipthose two “deacons” who are the only ones to be frequently mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles-seems
    to have consisted, according to the presentation of Luke,
    in searching and interpreting the Scriptures (Acts 6-8).
    If, then, theological work is a special service which
    may technically precede all others, it cannot, all the same,
    wish to be more than service or ministry. It is not fit
    for anything unless it also, though in quite a special
    way, is provision for the poor and sick in the community. The corresponding truth is that Christian ministry of this practical type would also not be possible
    without a minimum of serious theological work.
    To delimit our theme, the first thing to be said about
    the character of theological work as service is that it
    cannot be pursued for its own sake, in the manner of
    “art for art’s sake.” Whoever is seriously engaged in
    theological work knows that such a temptation lurks in
    many corners. Theology, especially in its form as dogmatics, is a uniquely fascinating science, since its beauty
    irresistibly elicits the display of intellectual architecton ics. As inquiry into both the bright and the dim, or
    dusky, figures and events of Church history, theology is
    at every point highly exciting, even from a purely secular point of view. And as exegesis, it is equally exciting
    because of the way in which it calls in equal measure
    for both minute attention and bold imagination.
    Theology is an enterprise in whose performance one
    question can all too easily be forgotten : For what purpose? Of course, this question may and should be set
    aside for the moment. Study is impossible when a student supposes he has to know and impatiently ask along
    every step of the way: Why do I need just this or that
    thing? How shall I begin to put this to use? Of what
    value is this to me in the community and the world? How
    can I explain this to the public, especially to modern
    men? He who continually carries such questions about
    in his heart and upon his lips is a theological worker
    who can scarcely be taken seriously either in his prayer
    or in his study. He who never lets himself be totally
    involved, or at least seriously engaged, by theological
    problems as such, but who concerns himself with them
    only in order subsequently to elevate himself by means
    of ready-made and patent solutions, will definitely not
    be able to say anything proper to the people. Much less
    will he be able to say the one thing that is fitting. The
    one right thing will be said only after the theologian’s
    first endeavor has been to make personal acquaintance
    with something that is relevant, right, and proper. And
    he had better not immediately thereafter glance furtively at this or that practical application. The theological beginner should concentrate on his study in its own
    right during his few years at the seminary or university,
    for these years will not return. It is no doubt unwise,
    if not dangerous, when, instead of such concentration,
    the beginner flings himself beforehand into all sorts of
    Christian activities and ruminates on them, or even stands with one foot already in an office of the Church,
    as is customary in certain countries.
    Nevertheless, this admonition does not alter the fact
    that the service of God and the service of man are the
    meaning, horizon, and goal of theological work. This
    goal is no gnosis floating in mid-air and actually serving
    only the intellectual and aesthetic impulse of the theologian. It is neither a gnosis of a speculative and mythological kind like that of the major and minor heretics
    of the first centuries, nor a gnosis of a historical-critical
    kind like that which began to flourish in the eighteenth
    century as the sole true theological science and which
    today is preparing to celebrate, if appearances do not
    deceive, new triumphs. If the proclamation or adoration of strange gods lurks behind the first kind of
    gnosis, skepticism or atheism lurks behind the second.
    After his fashion, Franz Overbeck no doubt was right
    when he pursued the way of this modern gnosis to its
    end and became wholly disinterested in theology as
    service. Although a member of the faculty of theology,
    he wanted to be and to be called, no longer a theologian
    at all, but-as may be read on his tombstone-only a
    “professor of Church history.”
    If theological work is not to become sterile in all its
    disciplines, regardless of how splendidly it may develop
    at one point or another, it must always keep sight of the
    fact that its object, the Word of God, demands more
    than simply being perceived, contemplated, and meditated in this or that particular aspect. What is demanded
    of theological work is the service of this word and
    attendance upon it. This may not always be its primary
    goal, and often it is the most remote one, but it remains
    its ultimate and real goal.
    As a further delimitation of our theme, a second
    remark must be made here. Since theology is called to serve, it must not rule. It must serve both God in his
    Word as the Lord of the world and of the community,
    and the man loved by God and addressed by God’s Word.
    It may rule neither in relation to God nor in relation
    to men.
    In our very first lecture we spoke of the modesty that
    befits theology. The ultimate basis of this modesty is
    the fact that theology is a service. Such modesty does
    not exclude but rather includes the fact that theological
    work may and should be done with calm self-assurance.
    Nowhere is it written that the congregation of theologians will have to join in the long line of worms which,
    according to a song in Haydn’s Creation, can only creep
    along the ground. If theology is not ashamed of the
    Gospel, it does not need to excuse itself to anyone for
    its own existence. It does not need to justify its action
    before the community or the world, either by constructing philosophical foundations or by other apologetic or
    didactic devices. Precisely because of its character as
    service, theological work should be done with uplifted
    head or not at all! Nevertheless, no one can engage in
    theology for the sake of earning a first prize or of
    securing for himself the highest status. A theologian
    cannot conduct himself like one who pretends to know
    all or who tries to outshine all those in the community
    who are less thoroughly learned and informed about
    the Gospel. Theology cannot vaunt itself in comparison
    with the achievements of other learned and informed
    men, and least of all, in comparison with other theologians.
    Since the Word of God lays claim to the service of
    the theologian, it does not allow him to gain control
    over it (and by no means does it command him to do
    so). In this respect, the theologian cannot present or
    conduct himself as the expert or superior authority in contrast to the fools intra et extra muros ecclesiae. It
    would be presumptuous to imagine that he might and
    could gain control over the Word and over the object
    of his science, for in that event the Word would cease
    to be the object of theology. The theologian’s whole endeavor would then lose its object and become, consequently, meaningless.
    Indeed it is also said of theologians : “Who hears you,
    hears me !” But this does not signify the founding of a
    “papacy of biblical scholars,” as Adolf Schlatter once
    termed it. For the “you” to whom this was said by
    Jesus are certainly no triumphal little popes, not to
    speak of crowned or uncrowned popes, but people who
    at Jesus’ invitation took the lowest places at his table.
    From this position they might, at his invitation, be
    moved somewhat further upward. Those who “know
    more” and are “justified” in their own eyes, when it
    comes to the Word, are precisely those who keep sight
    of the fact that this Word disposes over them and that
    they do not dispose over it. They have to serve it, and
    it does not have to serve them or help them toward the
    fulfillment of some claim to power, whether public or
    private-not even when the best intentions support it.
    They reckon with the possibility that quite suddenly
    some minor character in the community (the “little
    old lady” in the congregation, so well known to every
    pastor!) or perhaps some peculiar stranger and outsider might be better informed in a most important
    respect about the subject on which everything depends.
    Some such person might know more than they do, with
    all their science and all their disciplines, and they might
    find occasion to learn many things from him instead of
    tutoring him. In the meanwhile, they will do their best
    in prayer and study, with uplifted heads, as upright
    men who intend to take pleasure in their work for a moment. They are confident because what they do is
    permitted them as deacons, in the special freedom
    granted them and with the special honor due them as
    servants. Precisely this service, on which they have no
    more claim than any others, has been entrusted to them
    as the service belonging to their bit of theological
    science.
    But what are the consequences if the sense of theological work is the ministerium Verbi divini, attendance
    on the divine Word? Let us keep one thing clearly
    before our eyes: just as God’s work is his free work of
    grace, so is his Word spoken in this work his free Word
    of grace. It is free as his own Word, resounding by its
    own power and making itself be heard. No man, not
    even God’s community or theology itself, can appropriate, imitate, or repeat this Word. The frequently quoted
    short table of contents to the Second Helvetic Confession
    of Faith, written by Heinrich Bullinger, does not suggest an identification when it states in the second section
    of the first paragraph : Praedicatio verbi Dei est verbum
    Dei (The preaching of the Word of God is the Word of
    God). According to the context, what it states is: “When
    the Word of God today … is declared (annuntiatur)
    in the Church, we believe that the Word of God itself
    (ipsum Dei verbum) is there declared and is heard by
    the faithful.” In this unity which is known by faith,
    the Word which is spoken by God is one thing, and
    what the man says who declares this Word is another.
    There can be no question of a transubstantiation of the
    first into the second or of the second into the first. What
    may and must occur in the act of human proclamation
    is the annuntiatio, the declaration of God’s Word.
    Praedicatio, or preaching, is a declaration chosen by the
    Word itself. In it the Word will be mirrored and
    echoed. In general terms, this is the precise sense of all
    Christian service, including the service of theology.
    The special service of the attendance of theology on
    the Word of God must all the same be distinguished
    from other actions by which the community serves its
    Lord. The service of theology can be best described in
    the following way : with respect to preaching, teaching,
    and counseling, which are at least not directly its own
    concern, theology must pose the question about truth.
    Theology must aid these activities toward those clarifications which they need to attain, and which they can
    achieve when they pass an examination regarding their
    truthfulness. Theology, of course, has no power nor is
    it commissioned to activate the Word of God itself.
    But just the same, it is authorized and commissioned, as
    a secondary witness, to support the entire proclamation
    of the Church in its task of mirroring God’s Word as
    exactly as possible and of echoing it as clearly as possible.
    This secondary testimony of the community will quite
    likely never, and under any circumstances, be so perfect
    that a confrontation with the question about truth would
    be superfluous or unnecessary.
    For instance, in the life of the Christian community
    it can never be taken for granted that the community
    serves the Word of God by all its projects and institutions. The fact may be, instead, that the Word of God
    is being made to serve the community and its projects
    and institutions. Theology must continually remind the
    community in every possible way of this danger.
    Furthermore, it cannot be taken for granted that the
    connection of Church proclamation to the witness of
    the Old and- New Testaments is and remains not only
    acknowledged, but also practically effective. Theology
    must constantly remind the community of this connection and encourage it to become free from all other
    entanglements.
    Furthermore, in what the community does or does
    not do, says or does not say, it can all too easily under mine the fact that it has been called to proclaim to the
    world God’s Word and not some other word which circulates elsewhere in the world and repeatedly penetrates
    into the community itself. The corresponding fact
    that God’s Word is directed to man can also, all too
    easily, be weakened, obscured, or even denied. God’s
    Word engages man’s attention as, in the last and decisive analysis, the free and divine Word of grace. Theology must illumine these matters from every possible
    perspective.
    The proclamation of God’s Word in the community
    can also sacrifice its center, or its contours as well, by
    failing to understand and speak of this Word clearly
    and expressly as the Word spoken by God in the history
    of Israel and of Jesus Christ. Theology must come to
    the aid of the community by speaking, on its part, intensely and comprehensively about this concrete Word.
    When it proceeds properly, Church proclamation must
    follow the direction from above to below, from the shining life of God into the shadowy substance of the individual and collective life of humanity. Theology must
    demonstrate this movement in a manner exemplary
    for Church proclamation, making this movement impressive and winning. This movement is the law and
    freedom of the intellectus fidei.
    Church proclamation can suffer at one point from
    all too excessive many-sidedness and unhealthy overextension; at another point, from equally unhealthy onesidedness and narrowness in its subject matter. Here
    it may suffer from liberal softening and distraction;
    there, from confessionalistic and, perhaps also, biblicistic or liturgical ossification and constriction. Against
    one threat or the other, and as a rule against both
    simultaneously, theology will admonish Church proclamation to concentration and openness. Church proclamation will under all circumstances be always more or less strongly influenced by local, national, continental,
    or by social and racial traditions, and also by obvious
    prejudices, not to speak of the accidental or arbitrary
    aspects of situations which are determined by purely
    individual factors. In contrast to such influences, theology will have to stand guard over the purity of the
    Christian message and insist on the ecumenical, catholic,
    and universal sense and character of this message.
    Wherever theological work is done, such clarifications
    will be inevitable along all these or similar lines. Since
    theology must serve the Word of God by its critical
    questions, acting without fear or favor, it will always
    stand in a certain salutary tension with the course and
    direction of Church existence. And the life and work
    of every church (whether a state church or a free
    church) will demonstrate clearly whether such clarifications are taking place in it and whether theological work
    is or is not also being done in it. Church life will show
    plainly whether a given church favors the service of
    theology or whether the people gathered in it, along
    with its bishops and other spokesmen, hold the opinion
    that they may dispense with theology. Existing all the
    while in a vitality and security which are only supposedly spiritual, they may think they can get along
    just as well, or perhaps even better, without theological
    work. In this latter case, Christianity and so-called
    culture might possibly come to the parting of the ways
    against which Schleiermacher warned so passionately.
    But this need not happen, and even if it did occur, it
    would not be the worst thing that could happen. What
    would be the worst thing, no doubt, is that the quest for
    truth in Christianity, without the ministering support
    of theology, would fall asleep on duty. As a result, the
    truth-which must be sought if it is to become known
    and familiar-would have to sever itself from Christianity. Theological work has a great responsibility in the realm of the Church. The Church likewise has no
    less a responsibility in its realm to engage in serious
    theological work.
    One concluding question remains ; it cannot be more
    than a question. Since theological work is service in the
    community, indirectly it is also service in the world to
    which the community is commissioned to preach the
    Gospel. But is theological work, beyond this, also direct
    service in the world? Should the clarifications which it
    has helped achieve in the community also have significance, mutatis mutandis, for the general cultural life of
    mankind (for instance, for the sense and procedure of
    other human sciences) ? Should it also be necessary to
    art, for example, or to politics, or even to economics?
    Should it have something to say to them and aid to offer
    them? Such a thought can only be a question here,
    since the answer can only be given, reasonably enough,
    not by theology, but by those whom theology actually
    helped or failed to help. The case might be that the
    object with which theology is concerned could be experienced, at least as a problem, extra muros ecclesiae as
    well, whether consciously, half-consciously, or unconsciously. Philosophy, for example, might be looked upon
    as having at its best moments visualized the object of
    theology from afar, though without having seriously
    come to grips with it. The fact that beneath and beside
    the many other things which occupy men’s attention,
    theological work is also somewhere attempted, could
    give cause for thought, whether this fact is noted with
    disapproval or with respect. It could de facto serve as
    a reminder that something like the work and word of
    God ought to be considered, quite apart from all that
    men will, do, think, and know, in addition to and in
    contrast with these human activities. God’s work and
    word might function there as a limit, foundation, and
    goal, as a motivation and mitigation for all that.
    Let us make the assumption (which is no doubt permissible) that in the environment of the community
    there exists a more or less precise awareness of the need
    for orientation, limitation, clarification-a need which
    adheres to all human activities, including the proudest
    and most autonomous sciences. The proclamation of the
    community, as it was carried out throughout the centuries, has certainly contributed to the definition of an
    insight into that need. Therefore, the existence of a
    theological faculty among other university faculties may
    well be a meaningful phenomenon both today and in the
    future. After all, ages ago, the university itself grew out
    of the theological faculty.
    We must now surpass all that was said in the fourth
    series of these lectures about the performance of theological work in prayer, study, and service. A concluding word must be ventured to indicate the dominant
    principle, which is the sole source of the promise that
    theology may be a good work, pleasing to God and
    helpful to men. Unless this principle is valid and effective, theology will at no time or place ever become such
    a good work
    Each of our three preceding series of lectures was
    concluded with the naming of a dominant principle. At
    the goal of the first series, the subject was the Spirit;
    at the goal of the second, faith; and at the goal of the
    third, hope. Each time, from different points of view,
    this principle was the one and indispensable condition
    of theological science. Theology can only recognize this
    condition as one previously granted it by its object, and
    it can only treat it the way that one treats a gift freely
    given. Although determined to make use of it, theology
    can only be grateful for thig gift. In all this it knows very
    well that if this conditio sine qua non were not previously
    granted it, its work would remain cold, fruitless, dead,
    and bad, in spite of any perfection which it might perhaps possess in other respects. As we heard previously,
    the Spirit alone, faith alone, and hope alone really count.
    Once more we look at the fundamental condition of
    theology from the special point of view of the preceding
    three lectures. This condition approaches theology from
    its object, must be received from this object, and must
    be actively fulfilled by this object’s liberating power.
    We now venture the statement that theological work is
    a good work when it is permitted to be done in love. It is a good work only there (but nevertheless there with
    certainty) where it is resolutely done in love. Therefore,
    love alone counts. But love really counts. It builds up,
    as Paul consolingly wrote. In a later verse he adds that
    love never ends. Together with faith and hope (and as
    “the greatest of these”), it abides even when everything
    else passes away. But the same Paul also warned that
    knowledge as such, knowledge in abstracto, and theological effort and work in themselves do not build up
    but puff up and are arrogant. Later he adds that if he
    did not have love he would be only a noisy gong or a
    clanging cymbal, even as an apostle, and even if he were
    capable of the most adequate human speech, or even
    the speech of the angels. Without love he would be
    nothing at all, however capable he might be of speaking
    prophetically, knowing all mysteries, or attaining and
    enjoying all possible knowledge (I Cor. 8 and 13) ! We
    will consider ourselves both admonished and comforted
    by this. Without love, theological work would be miserable polemics and a waste of words. The most serious
    prayer, the most thorough and extensive study, or the
    most zealous service could not alter this result. Theological work can only be undertaken, continued, and
    concluded by the reception and activation of the free
    gift of love. But as a good work it may and should be
    done in love.
    Something further must now be said about this, to
    conclude not only this fourth series of lectures but also
    our whole Evangelical Theology.
    How can we avoid being reminded by the word “love,”
    first of all, of the Eros so highly praised in Plato’s
    teaching? Love, as Eros, is, in general terms, the primordially powerful desire, urge, impulse, and endeavor
    by which a created being seeks his own self-assertion,
    satisfaction, realization, and fulfillment in his relation
    to something else. He strives to draw near to this other person or thing, to win it for himself, to take it to
    himself, and to make it his own as clearly and definitively as possible. And in a special sense, love, as scientific Eros, is the same desire in its intellectual form. It
    is the soaring movement by which human knowledge
    lets itself be borne toward its objects and hurries toward
    them in order to unite them with itself and itself with
    them, to bring them into its possession and power, and
    to enjoy them in this way.
    Without scientific Eros there would be no theological
    work (and here we recollect what was said about study
    as such). Theological work is certainly also a human
    intellectual movement and, in its physical substratum,
    a human movement of the living person. Scientific, theological Eros has perpetually oscillated concerning the
    object which it should present to man for the sake of
    his self-assertion and self-fulfillment. That is to say,
    theological Eros can be directed either predominantly
    (and perhaps even exclusively) toward God or predominantly (and, once again, perhaps even exclusively)
    toward man.
    The knowing subject can be interested either primarily in God or primarily in man. Its wish can be to
    comprehend, possess, enjoy, and, in this sense, to know
    either God above all or man above all. In the theology
    of antiquity and of the Middle Ages, scientific Eros expressed itself more in the first and theocentric direction.
    Conversely, in the more recent theology determined by
    Descartes, it tended more in the second and anthropocentric direction. To the extent that this object in fact has
    to do with both God and man, both emphases were not
    without foundation in the true object of theology. However, this very object never really permitted such oscillation, wavering, or separation between God and man as
    is characteristic of the history of scientific theological
    Eros. Moreover, another element intrinsic to scientific Eros also does not arise from the object of theology.
    Whatever theologian allows himself to be ruled and motivated by Eros has a very remarkable capacity for wandering-yesterday he may have stood in the fields of
    idealism, positivism, or existentialism; today (probably
    for the sake of change) he may be in the domain of the
    Old and New Testaments; and tomorrow, as far as anyone knows, just as easily he may be found in the realms
    of anthroposophism, astrology, or spiritism. Are there
    any limits to what subject might be “interesting” or what
    “cause” urgent?
    When scientific Eros evolves in the field of theology, it
    characteristically and continually confuses and exchanges the object of theology with other objects. So far
    as Eros is the motive of theological work, God will not be
    loved and known for God’s sake, nor man for man’s
    sake. This situation can only be explained by the nature
    of Eros: every attempt to love and know God and man
    is made in the quite conscious and deepest interests of
    the theologian himself, in the self-love of the one who
    produces this theology.
    Let us not delude ourselves about the fact that this
    love will constantly be present wherever theological
    work is done ! As surely as those who do this work are
    creatures of flesh and blood, so surely will they be
    affected by this love that, for its own purposes, needs and
    desires both divinity and humanity. Therefore, let us
    not suppose that we can or may deny that this type
    of love has its characteristic worth, power, and significance within the human situation. Eros forms, let us
    say, an outstanding phenomenon of man’s spiritual life.
    Truly, nothing of small weight is involved when men
    believe it to be both necessary and desirous for them to
    love and know God or man or God and man in their
    own interest.
    But one thing cannot be granted under any circum stances : that love of this kind would be identical with
    the love which makes theological labor a good work
    and without which this labor could certainly not become
    and remain good. To say that Eros was poured into our
    hearts by the Holy Spirit would obviously be possible
    only for someone blind or impertinent enough to ignore
    consistently all that Paul and the New Testament meant
    and expressed with these and similar words. Only such
    a person could say that Eros “builds up,” that it “never
    ends,” and that nothing is able to separate us from it (at
    the very least, our death will certainly do that!). Only
    so could it be named in the same breath with faith and
    hope (quite apart from the poor taste of such combinations) or explained together with them as the substance
    that remains after the great and general passing away of
    everything else.
    It is undoubtedly no mere accident that the substantive “Eros” and its corresponding verb do not appear
    at all in the writings of Paul and the rest of the New
    Testament. The word for “love” in the New Testament
    is Agape. And from every context in which it appears
    the conclusion is obvious that it signifies a movement
    which runs almost exactly in the opposite direction from
    that of Eros. Love in the sense of Agape is admittedly
    also the total seeking of another, and this is the one
    thing that it has in common with love as Eros. In
    Agape, however, the one who loves never understands
    the origin of his search as a demand inherent within
    himself, but always as an entirely new freedom for the
    other one, a freedom which was simply bestowed on him
    and consequently was originally alien to him. On his
    own, he never should or would have loved this other one
    at all. But he may do this, and since he may do it, he
    does do it. Because he is free for this other, he loves him.
    In this way he loves concentratedly, not haphazardly,
    ramblingly, or distractedly. And because he is free for him, he does not seek him as though he needed him for
    himself as a means to his self-assertion and self-fulfillment. The one who loves, seeks the other only for his
    own sake. He does not want to win and possess him for
    himself in order to enjoy him and his own power over
    him. He never trespasses on the freedom of the other,
    but by respecting the other’s freedom, he simply remains
    quite free for him. He loves him gratis. That is to say,
    he desires nothing from him, and he does not wish to be
    rewarded by him. All he desires is to exist for him, to
    offer himself to him, and finally to give himself to him.
    He desires to be permitted to love him simply in the way
    that this ability has been granted to himself. If love, in
    the sense of Agape, is no doubt also a seeking, it is
    nevertheless not an interested, but a sovereign seeking
    of the other one. “Giving is more blessed than receiving.” This seeking is sovereign precisely because it is
    directed and oriented not to the sovereignty of the one
    who loves but to the sovereignty of the beloved one. To
    speak once more with Paul, love in the sense of Agape
    is patient and kind, not jealous or boastful, not arrogant
    or rude, not insisting on its own way. It rejoices in the
    truth, bears, believes, hopes, and endures all things.
    Agape is related to Eros, as Mozart to Beethoven. How
    could they possibly be confused? Agape is an altogether
    positive striving toward the other, quite distinct from
    all self-righteousness and intellectual superiority, as
    well as from all strife.
    At this point the question may remain undecided
    whether it would not also be beneficial for the other
    sciences if the ruling motive of their procedure was
    Agape rather than Eros. For theological work the
    dominant position of love is a vital and unalterable
    necessity. Indeed, theological work also displays that
    interest of the perceiving human subject and that sweeping movement in which it allows itself to be borne and hurried toward the object to be known. These elements
    of Eros will not be simply suppressed or eliminated in
    it. For theological work, however, Eros can only be the
    serving, not the ruling, motive. The erotic wish and
    desire to gain possession of the object can have in theological work only the significance of a first and inevitable
    beginning in the direction toward its object. Wish and
    desire will form only an attempt; they will be ready to
    step back cheerfully before the object of their venture.
    They yield gladly when their object makes an altogether
    different attempt, not only to purify and to control them,
    but also to transform them according to its nature and
    to integrate them into itself. In theological work there
    must be an end to the dominion of Eros, even if not an
    end to scientific Eros as such. The love which has dominion in this work can only be the Agape which is
    activated as a new and strange factor in theological
    work. This Agape is introduced by the very object
    which is to be known in it, in contrast to the knowing
    human subject and his Eros.
    The object of theological work is, in fact, a unity. This
    unity forbids not only rambling and distraction in every
    possible depth, height, and breadth, but also every inner
    opposition. It forbids that dualism in which, as was so
    often the case, theological work could waver back and
    forth between friendship for God and friendship for
    man, reacting now toward one and now toward the
    other. The object of this work is the one true God and
    the one true man. The true God exists not in his aseity
    and independence but in his union with the one true
    man. And the true man likewise exists not in his independence but in his union with the one true God. The
    object of theology is, in fact, Jesus Christ. This means,
    however, that it is the history of the fulfillment of the
    covenant between God and man. In this history the
    great God gave and offered himself in his own primal freedom to be the God of small man; but, in this history,
    the small man also gave and offered himself, in the
    freedom given him by God for this act, to be the great
    God’s man. This history took place uniquely, once for
    all, scorning all attempts to surpass it. The object of
    theological knowledge is this covenant event and, in it,
    the perfect love which unites man with God and God
    with man. In this love there is no fear. This perfect
    love drives out fear because in it God loved man for his
    own sake and man loved God for his own sake. What
    took place on both sides was not a need, wish, and
    desire but simply the freedom to exist for one another
    gratis. This was God’s own primal freedom for man
    and at the same time man’s freedom which was granted
    him by God. This was Agape, which descends from
    above, and by the power of this descent, simultaneously
    ascends from below. Agape is both movements in equal
    sovereignty, or, rather, this single movement.
    If the object of theological knowledge is Jesus Christ
    and, in him, perfect love, then Agape alone can be the
    dominant and formative prototype and principle of theology. At this time and place, we may be sure that our
    knowledge will never become equal to Jesus Christ. In
    relation to him our knowledge will always be imperfect
    and inadequate because it will be obscured by every
    variety of the unrestrained and unconverted Eros that
    accompanies it. We are still in the state and pathway
    of the theologia viatorum, of the pilgrims who in every
    respect are simul justi et peccatores, simultaneously
    righteous and sinning. But this cannot mean that theological knowledge might withdraw from the dominion
    and formative power of perfect love, or that it might
    take its tiny steps along a path different from the one
    assigned it. Theological knowledge and theological posing and answering of the question about truth will,
    instead, only be properly done in the very measure that they render the life and dominion of perfect love visible
    per speculum, through a mirror, no matter how clouded
    this mirror may be. In its character as opus operantis,
    that is, with respect to the one who performs this act,
    theological knowledge will be a good work, pleasing to
    God and men and salutary for the Church and the world,
    to the extent that it is, remains, and repeatedly becomes
    free by renewed consideration of the opus operatum
    Jesu Christi, the work of Jesus Christ which is performed. This knowledge is good when it becomes free
    for the freedom with which God offered himself to man
    gratis and which he gave to man so that man might
    correspondingly give himself to God gratis. As evangelical theological knowledge, it cannot be won by any
    wishes, postulates, or requirements. It can be accomplished only by acknowledgment and confirmation of
    what is previously given it as its own prototype, i.e., the
    work of God : love in Jesus Christ. It is and remains
    subordinate and subsequent to that love; but it attempts
    to correspond to perfect love in spite of all imperfection.
    This orientation toward the perfect love is what may be
    somewhat dryly designated as the objectivity of theological work. In all its disciplines the same objectivity
    is required. When cultivated and pursued in this objectivity, theology is a modest, free, critical, and happy
    science, to recall once again those key words of our first
    lecture.
    Will it really be this? Those who are active in this
    work cannot guarantee that it will be and is such a
    science. The situation is no different here than with the
    Holy Spirit, faith, or hope, none of which can be possessed, produced, or procured. The decisive presupposition of theological work is also its boundary. It is good
    that this should be so. For this means that those who
    are occupied with theology are compelled all along the
    line to look beyond themselves and their work in order properly to do what they do. The situation is no different
    with perfect love, which is the aspect under which we
    have attempted to look once again directly at the decisive presupposition of theology. In some sort of form
    and potency, Eros can be presupposed with every man.
    Agape, however, cannot be presupposed for any man.
    Only as a gift can it be received and set in action by
    any man, including any theologian at any time or place.
    It is “in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:39). It is
    where he is, works, and speaks. And since he is our
    sovereign Lord, what Luther said about the Word of
    God also holds true for Agape. It is “a passing thunderstorm” that bursts at one moment here and at another
    moment elsewhere. At all times and on all occasions, theological knowledge can take place and be accounted good
    in affinity to the gift and presence of that love. But
    something else also holds true of him in whom that love
    is real and true as both divine and human love. Whoever
    calls on his name will be saved. That is to say, whether
    or not the thunderstorm bursts, such a person may live
    and work with a promise. He is promised that perfect
    love is the heaven spread out over him, whether or not
    this love is momentarily clear or hidden from him. Protected and encouraged by the promise of this love, he
    may pray, study, and serve ; and trusting in it, he may
    think, speak, and finally also die. Once a man knows
    where to seek and from where to expect the perfect love,
    he will never be frustrated in his attempts to turn
    himself to it and to receive from it an orientation which
    enlightens his small portion of knowledge. This love
    abides in the one in whom the covenant between God
    and man is fulfilled. It abides even when theologians
    come and go and even when things become brighter or
    darker in theology. It abides like the sun behind the
    clouds, which more precisely is and remains victoriously above the clouds as “the golden sun.” To know about
    the perfect love is in every case better than not to know
    about it. It is better to know about this conditio sine
    qua non, this indispensable condition, even if all that
    can be done is to sigh for it. Simply to know about it
    affords ample occasion to join in the praise of God, the
    God of the covenant, the God who is love itself. It is
    the very purpose of theological work, at any rate, to
    know about this love and, therefore, to join in the praise
    of God as expressed in the words of that familiar section
    of the liturgy of the early Church, with which we may
    now conclude :
    Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui sancto
    Sicut erat in principio et (est) nunc et (erit) semper
    et in saecula saeculorum!
    Glory be to the Father and to the Son and
    to the Holy Spirit
    As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be,
    world without end !
    ‘ As we previously indicated in point two on pages 7-9.
    It will be recalled that this was the substance of the first two
    points of our introductory lecture, cf. pp. 6-9.
    ‘ Cf. chapter 3, page 26.
    “True knowledge of God is born out of obedience.”
    d
    It is worth remembering in this context what was said about
    this in point four of the last lecture, cf. pp. 10-12.
    ‘ From Goethe’s Faust, Part One (scene in “The Study”).
    Title of a hymn by Heinrich Held, 1658.
    At the conclusion of his delivery of the fifth lecture on “The
    Spirit,” at Chicago and Princeton, Karl Barth added the following: “So much as an introduction to evangelical theology. But
    one thing remains to be added. Allow me to say it a little enigmatically and cryptically with the words of the Rebel General
    Stonewall Jackson, spoken at the hour of his death :
    ” `Let us cross the river’-nobody knows whether he meant the
    Potomac or the Jordan-‘and have a rest in the shade of the
    trees.’ “
    First line of a hymn by Paul Gerhardt, 1666.
    From Goethe’s Faust, Part one (scene “Night”).
    From Luther’s Smaller Catechism, Third Article, 1531.
    Refrain from a German Christmas hymn based on In dulci
    jubilo.
    ‘ Psalms 102:7
    ‘ From Paul Gerhardt’s hymn, “Du Meine Seele, singe,” 1653.
    “The Golden Sun” is the title of a hymn by Paul Gerhardt, 1666.