To the Physicist,
Barth's opening gambit as the discipline of theology as a science came as a little bit of a surprise for me. Not because he was saying anything new, I had already come across the idea that theology is a science in one of his students T.F. Torrance.
Rather because having already dipped into the Dogmatics for different projects I expected the first words to be something about the revelation of God in Jesus.
But as I got into the chapter "The Church, Theology and Science" the sense of what Barth did became clear. I believe Barth was making an assumption that readers of the Dogmatics would already be Christians given that theology is an act of "scientific" self examination by the church.
I wonder how a scientist might view this claim of theology as a scientific endeavour? Is science more about process or the content? Peter Harrison's book "The Bible, Protestantism and the rise of natural science" (which I have only skimmed) certainly points at the methodological development of modern scientific thinking from theology.
The centre of the circle of this self-examination in Barth's words, "The question of truth, with which theology is concerned, is the question as to the agreement of the Church's distinctive talk about God with the being of the Church". In the sense theology appears a rational, scientific, analysis of the history of revelation and its current experience and articulation of that revelation. It is an analysis that is focused inwardly.
I wonder if this is a concern? But maybe the inward focus is not in the sense of self-justification, theology for the sake of justifying theology, but in order to ensure that there is a coherence between what the church says about God and how it exists as the church. This reminded me somewhat of John Calvin's purpose in writing the Institutes to expound how the Scriptures should be read and interpreted. I am sure that i will come across such links again given Barth's high regard for Calvin.
I also like the idea of dogmatics being an act of penitence and obedience p.22 - does this mean that dogmatics becomes like one long prayer, confession? Yet as a scientific methodology I wonder how this relates? Is the continued testing of hypotheses like a confession and repentance, admitting to where the error is and starting again?
Regards
The Theologian
re penitence and obedience: I sense that, for Barth, the task of theology for the church parallels in many ways the call to discipleship for the individual christian. Both are ventured as responses to God's address to us; an address that at once creates both the freedom to respond and demands an accountability in our response.
ReplyDeleteFreedom and accountability are also core aspects of the scientific endeavour - freedom to experiment and speculate in the search for truth, but also the accountability that the results of this search should be measured up against objective reality.
In so far as historic christianity fostered this kind of attitude, I can't help thinking it helped give birth to modern science. But of course there were many factors at work, and sometimes good things happen despite good intentions rather than because of them!
I concur with the idea that there is a parallel with the individual Christian life. It raises an interesting conundrum, one of which Barth was totally aware (especially given his love for Calvin's work cf. Inst 3.14.11). That is that penitence and obdeience do not necessarily equal right understanding or action, but in and of themselves pentience and obedience are an act of faithfulness, however imperfect the outcomes.
DeleteI wonder if scientists in generally have such an udnertsanding of the conundrum of the fallibility of their work.