Karl Barth's Infralapsarian Theology: Origins and Development, 1920-1953

324 Pages·2016·3.989 MB·English

by  Shao Kai Tseng

N E W E X PLOR AT IONS
I N T H EOLO GY
K A R L B A R T H ’ S
I N F R A L A P S A R I A N
T H E O L O G Y
ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT
1920–1953
SHAO KAI TSENG
GEORGE HUNSINGER
FOREWORD BY
InterVarsity Press
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©2016 by Shao Kai Tseng
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ISBN 978-0-8308-9982-1 (digital)
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To my parents

Contents
Foreword by George Hunsinger 9
Acknowledgments 15
Abbreviations 19
Introduction 21
Part 1: Reappraising Barth’s Lapsarian Position
1 Supra- and Infralapsarianism in the Seventeenth
Century: Some Definitions 41
2 Church Dogmatics §33: Barth’s Lapsarian Position Reassessed 62
Part 2: Barth’s Lapsarian Position in Development, 1920–1953
3 Römerbrief II (1920–1921): Lapsarianism in the
“Impossible Possibility” Dialectic 83
4 The Göttingen-Münster Period (1921–1930): Christology
and Predestination in the Subject-Object Dialectic 112
5 The Bonn Years (1930–1935): Human Talk and Divine Word—
New Developments? 148
6 Gottes Gnadenwahl (1936): Infralapsarian Aspects of Barth’s
Christocentric Doctrine of Election 177
7 CD II/2 (1939–1942): Christ as Electing God and Elected
Human—Lapsarianism “Purified” 213
8 CD IV/1 (1951–1953): Adamic History and History of Christ—
Infralapsarian Tendencies in Barth’s Doctrine of Sin 242
Conclusion 290
Bibliography 301
Author Index 314
Subject Index 315
New Explorations in Theology 318
Praise for Karl Barth’s Infralapsarian Theology 319
About the Author 322
More Titles from InterVarsity Press 323
IVP Academic Textbook Selector 324
Foreword
George Hunsinger
I
n this fine study Professor Shao Kai Tseng makes a solid and
creative contribution to Barth studies. By charting how Barth revised his
view of election from some of his earliest sketches to his mature views, great
light is cast on Barth’s theology as a whole. In particular Professor Tseng
traces the development of the rather technical, but nonetheless very im-
portant, distinction between supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism in
Barth’s doctrine of election.
Professor Tseng makes the striking proposal that because Barth viewed
Jesus Christ as the object of election, his ideas were actually in line with the
historic infralapsarians of the Reformed tradition rather than with the su-
pralapsarians with whom Barth explicitly, though not uncritically, aligned
himself. Whereas Barth designated his conclusions as “purified supralapsar-
ianism,” Professor Tseng argues to the contrary that Barth should be seen
instead as “basically infralapsarian.” The reason is that in accord with the
infralapsarians, but unlike the supralapsarians, Barth saw pretemporal
election in Christ as oriented to the salvation of fallen human beings.
Professor Tseng makes a powerful argument. At the level of conceptual
analysis and general historical sensitivity, it would be hard to quarrel with
it. In that sense it is a fine and original piece of work. I suspect that in many
ways the contribution Tseng makes will be a lasting one.
Nevertheless, I have an important reservation. I think it would be better to
agree with Barth that in the end he was a “purified supralapsarian,” while still
10 Karl Barth’s Infralapsarian Theology
accepting the thesis, as advanced by Professor Tseng, that he has strong “in-
fralapsarian” tendencies. With that caveat I think we could say, splitting the
difference, that Barth was strongly though not basically infralapsarian. He
represented a purified supralapsarianism with strong infralapsarian elements.
To make his case Professor Tseng relies heavily on a remark that I once
made about Barth. I observed that Barth did not want to commit himself on
the question of whether the incarnation would have occurred without hu-
manity’s fall into sin. Barth believed it would be speculative and unwar-
ranted to take a stand on such a matter. So far, so very good. That was Barth’s
“official” view, and I would stand by my remark.
Nevertheless, it is astonishing how many wheels within wheels Barth’s
dialectical engine can keep spinning.1 There are passages in the Church Dog-
matics that make it sound as though there would indeed have been an in-
carnation even if the world had not fallen into sin. To this effect there is an
almost inconspicuous but still discernible thread that runs through the great,
imposing tapestry of Barth’s mature dogmatics.
Let me give just one example. Near the beginning of Church Dogmatics,
volume IV, part 1, Barth has a long section called “The Covenant as the Pre-
supposition of Reconciliation.” A careful reading of this material shows that
for Barth not only does reconciliation presuppose a logically prior covenant,
but the covenant always involves Jesus Christ as its essential content. The
covenant is thought to be ontologically basic and prior to reconciliation.
Reconciliation is seen as a contingent but not an essential means by which
God would fulfill his original covenantal will (Bundeswillen) for his creation.
There would still have been a covenant even if the world had not fallen into
sin. Furthermore, as the eternal Word of God through whom all things came
into being, Jesus Christ was at once the covenant’s center and the means
ordained for its fulfillment—with or without the fall.
Barth’s views along these lines are scattered throughout the opening of
IV/1. He does not present them thematically or even all in one place. Perhaps
the first indication appears in his surprising remark that the creature as such
is in need of salvation—not merely the creature qua sinner, but precisely the
creature qua creature. “Salvation,” Barth states, “is the perfect being which
1I owe this phrase to Robert W. Jenson. See his “Response” in Union Seminary Quarterly Review
28 (1972): 31-34, on 31.