The following is an outline of Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics (edited by G. W. Bromiley and T. F.
Torrance [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark]). The section headings in italics, as well as the section summaries in bold-face italics, are direct quotes from the Church Dogmatics. The essays linked in the outline are simply my summaries of sections or smaller parts of Barth's inspiring work.
Volume I: The Doctrine of the Word of God
(I.1 translated by G. W. Bromiley,
1975)
Introduction
Section 1: The Task of Dogmatics
As a theological discipline dogmatics
is the scientific self-examination of the Christian Church with respect to the
content of its distinctive talk about God (3).
1.
The Church, Theology, Science (3)
2.
Dogmatics as an Enquiry (11) 3. Dogmatics as an Act of Faith (17)
Section 2: The Task of Prolegomena to Dogmatics
Prolegomena to dogmatics is our name
for the introductory part of dogmatics in which our concern is to understand
its particular way of knowledge (25).
1.
The Necessity of Dogmatic Prolegomena (25)
2. The Possibility of Dogmatic
Prolegomena (36)
Chapter I: The Word of God as the
Criterion of Dogmatics (I.1)
Section 3: Church Proclamation as the Material of
Dogmatics
Talk about God in the Church seeks to
be proclamation to the extent that in the form of preaching and sacrament it is
directed to man with the claim and expectation that in accordance with its
commission it has to speak to him the Word of God to be heard in faith.
Inasmuch as it is a human word in spite of this claim and expectation, it is
the material of dogmatics, i.e., of the investigation of its responsibility as
measured by the Word of God which it seeks to proclaim (47).
1.
Talk about God and Church Proclamation (47)
2. Dogmatics and Church Proclamation (71)
Section 4: The Word of God in Its
Threefold Form
The presupposition which makes
proclamation proclamation and therewith makes the Church the Church is the Word
of God. This attests itself in Holy Scripture in the word of the prophets and
apostles by whom it was originally and once and for all spoken by God's
revelation (88).
1. The Word of
God Preached (88) 2. The Word of
God Written (99)
3. The Word of
God Revealed (111)
4. The Unity
of the Word of God (120)
Section 5: The Nature of the Word of God
The Word of God in
all its three forms is God’s speech to man. For this reason it occurs, applies
and works in God’s behalf on man. But as such it occurs in God’s way which
differs from all other occurrence, i.e., in the mystery of God (125).
1. The
Question of the Nature of the Word of God (125)
2. God’s Word
as the Speech of God (132)
3. The Speech
of God as the Act of God (143)
4. The Speech
of God as the Mystery of God (162)
Section 6: The Knowability of the Word of God
The reality
of the Word of God in all its three forms is grounded only in itself. So, too,
the knowledge of it by men can consist only in its acknowledgment, and this
acknowledgment can become real only through itself and can become intelligible
only in terms of itself (187).
1. The Question of the
Knowability of the Word of God (187)
2. The Word of God and Man (190)
3.
The Word of God and Experience (198)
4. The Word of God and Faith (227)
Section 7: The Word of God, Dogma and Dogmatics
Dogmatics
is the critical question about dogma, i.e., about the Word of God in Church
proclamation, or, concretely, about the agreement of the Church proclamation
done and to be done by man with the revelation attested in Holy Scripture. Prolegomena
to dogmatics as an understanding of its epistemological path must therefore
consist in an exposition of the three forms of the Word of God as revealed,
written, and preached (248).
1. The Problem of Dogmatics (248) 2.
Dogmatics as a Science (275)
3. The Problem of Dogmatic
Prolegomena (287)
Chapter II: The Revelation of God
Part I: The Triune God
God’s Word
is God Himself in His Revelation. For God reveals Himself as the Lord and
according to Scripture this signifies for the concept of revelation that God
Himself in unimpaired unity yet also in unimpaired distinction is Revealer,
Revelation, and Revealedness (295).
1. The Place
of the Doctrine of the Trinity in Dogmatics (295)
2. The Root of the Doctrine of the Trinity (304)
3. Vestigium
Trinitatis (333)
Section 9: The Triunity of God
The God who
reveals Himself according to Scripture is One in three distinctive modes of
being subsisting in their mutual relations: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is
thus that He is the Lord, i.e., the Thou who meets man’s I and unites Himself
to this I as the indissoluble Subject and thereby and therein reveals Himself
to him as his God (348).
1. Unity in
Trinity (348)
2. Trinity in
Unity (353)
3. Triunity
(368)
4. The Meaning
of the Doctrine of the Trinity (375)
The one God
reveals Himself according to Scripture as the Creator, that is, as the Lord of
our existence. As such He is God our Father because he is so antecedently in
Himself as the Father of the Son (384).
1. God as
Creator (384)
2. The Eternal
Father (390)
The one God
reveals Himself according to Scripture as the Reconciler, i.e., as the Lord in
the midst of our enmity towards Him. As such He is the Son of God who has come
to us or the Word of God that has been spoken to us, because He is so
antecedently in Himself as the Son or Word of God the Father (399)
1. God as
Reconciler (399)
2. The Eternal
Son (414)
Section 12: God the Holy Spirit
The one God
reveals Himself according to Scripture as the Redeemer, i.e., as the Lord who
sets us free. As such He is the Holy Spirit, by receiving whom we become the
children of God, because, as the Spirit of the love of God the Father and the
Son, He is so antecedently in Himself (448).
1. God as
Redeemer (448)
2. The Eternal
Spirit (466)
Volume I: The Doctrine of the Word of God (continued)
(I.2 translated by G. T. Thomson and
Harold Knight, 1956)
Part II: The Incarnation of the Word (I.2)
According
to Holy Scripture God’s revelation takes place in the fact that God’s Word
became a man and that this man has become God’s Word. The incarnation of the
eternal Word, Jesus Christ, is God’s revelation. In the reality of this event
God proves that He is free to be our God (1).
1. Jesus
Christ the Objective Reality of Revelation (1)
2. Jesus
Christ the Objective Possibility of Revelation (25)
Section 14: The Time of Revelation
God’s
revelation in the event of the presence of Jesus Christ is God’s time for us.
It is fulfilled time in this event itself. But as the Old Testament time of
expectation and as the New Testament time of recollection it is also the time
of witness to this event (45).
1. God’s Time
and our Time (45)
2. The Time of Expectation (70)
3. The Time of
Recollection (101)
Section 15: The Mystery of Revelation
The mystery
of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ consists in the fact that the eternal
Word of God chose, sanctified and assumed human nature and existence into
oneness with Himself, in order thus, as very God and very man, to become the
Word of reconciliation spoken by God to man. The sign of this mystery revealed
in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the miracle of His birth, that He was
conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary (122).
1. The Problem
of Christology (122)
2. Very God
and Very Man (132)
3. The Miracle
of Christmas (172)
Part III: The Outpouring of the Holy Spirit
According
to Holy Scripture God’s revelation occurs in our enlightenment by the Holy
Spirit of God to a knowledge of His Word. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit is
God’s revelation. In the reality of this event consists our freedom to be the
children of God and to know and love and praise Him in His Revelation (203).
1. The Holy
Spirit the Subjective Reality of Revelation (203)
2. The Holy
Spirit the Subjective Possibility of Revelation (242)
Section 17: The Revelation of God
as the Abolition of Religion
The
revelation of God in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is the judging but also
the reconciling presence of God in the world of human religion, that is, in the
realm of man’s attempts to justify and to sanctify himself before a capricious
and arbitrary picture of God. The Church is the locus of true religion, so far
as through grace it lives by grace (280).
1. The Problem
of Religion in Theology (280)
2. Religion as
Unbelief (297)
3. True
Religion (325)
Section 18: The Life of the Children of God
Where it is
believed and acknowledged in the Holy Spirit, the revelation of God creates men
who do not exist without seeking God in Jesus Christ, and who cannot cease to
testify that He has found them (362).
1. Man as a Doer
of the Word (362)
2. The Love of
God (371)
3. The Praise
of God (401)
Chapter III: Holy Scripture
The Word of
God is God Himself in Holy Scripture. For God once spoke as Lord to Moses and
the prophets, to the Evangelists and apostles. And now through the written word
He speaks as the same Lord to His Church. Scripture is holy and the Word of
God, because by the Holy Spirit it became and will become to the Church a
witness to divine revelation (457).
1. Scripture
as a Witness to Divine Revelation (457)
2. Scripture
as the Word of God (473)
Section 20: Authority in the Church
The Church does
not claim direct and absolute and material authority for itself but for Holy
Scripture as the Word of God. But actual obedience to the authoritative Word of
God in Holy Scripture is objectively determined by the fact that those who in
the Church mutually confess an acceptance of the witness of Holy Scripture will
be ready and willing to listen to one another in expounding and amplifying it.
By the authority of Holy Scripture on which it is founded, authority in the
Church is restricted to an indirect and relative and formal authority (538).
1. The
Authority of the Word (538)
2. Authority
under the Word (585)
Section 21: Freedom in the Church
A member of
the Church claims direct, absolute and material freedom not for himself, but
only for Holy Scripture as the Word of God. But obedience to the free Word of
God in Holy Scripture is subjectively conditioned by the fact that each
individual who confesses his acceptance of the testimony of Scripture must be
willing and prepared to undertake the responsibility for its interpretation and
application. Freedom in the Church is limited as an indirect, relative and
formal freedom by the freedom of Holy Scripture in which it is grounded (661).
1. The Freedom
of the Word (661)
2. Freedom
under the Word (695)
Chapter IV: The Proclamation of the Church
Section 22: The Mission of the Church (743)
The Word of
God is God Himself in the proclamation of the Church of Jesus Christ. In so far
as God gives the Church the commission to speak about Him, and the Church
discharges this commission, it is God Himself who declares His revelation in
His witnesses. The proclamation of the Church is pure doctrine when the human
word spoken in it in confirmation of the biblical witnesses to revelation
offers and creates obedience to the Word of God. Because this is its essential
character, function and duty, the word of the Church preacher is the special
and immediate object of dogmatic activity (743).
2. Pure Doctrine as the Problem of Dogmatics (758)
3. Dogmatics
as Ethics (782)
Section 23: Dogmatics as a Function of the Hearing Church
Dogmatics
invites the teaching Church to listen again to the Word of God in the
revelation to which Scripture testifies. It can do this only if for its own
part it adopts the attitude of the hearing Church and therefore itself listens
to the Word of God as the norm to which the hearing Church knows itself to be
subject (797).
1. The Formal
Task of Dogmatics (797)
2. The
Dogmatic Norm (812)
Section 24: Dogmatics as a Function of the Teaching Church
Dogmatics
summons the listening Church to address itself anew to the task of teaching the
Word of God in the revelation attested in Scripture. It can do this only as it
accepts itself the position of the teaching Church and is therefore claimed by
the Word of God as the object to which the teaching Church as such has devoted
itself (844).
1. The
Material Task of Dogmatics (844)
2. The
Dogmatic Method (853)
Volume II: The Doctrine of God
(II.1 translated by T. H. L. Parker,
W. B. Johnston, Harold Knight, and J. L. M. Haire, 1957)
Chapter V: The Knowledge of God
Section 25: The Fulfillment of the Knowledge of God
The
knowledge of God occurs in the fulfillment of the revelation of His Word by the
Holy Spirit, and therefore in the reality and with the necessity of faith and
its obedience. Its content is the existence of Him whom we must fear above all
things because we may love Him above all things; who remains a mystery to us
because He Himself has made Himself so clear and certain to us (3).
1. Man before
God (3)
2. God before
Man (31)
Section 26: The Knowability of God
The possibility of the knowledge
of God springs from God, in that He is Himself the truth and He gives Himself
to man in His Word by the Holy Spirit to be known as the truth. It springs from
man, in that, in the Son of God by the Holy Spirit, he becomes an object of the
divine good-pleasure and therefore participates in the truth of God (63).
1. The Readiness of God
2.
The Readiness of Man
Section 27: The Limits of the Knowledge of God
God is
known only by God. We do not know Him, then, in virtue of the views and
concepts with which in faith we attempt to respond to His revelation. But we
also do not know Him without making use of His permission and obeying His
command to undertake this attempt. The success of this undertaking, and
therefore the veracity of our human knowledge of God, consists in the fact that
our viewing and conceiving is adopted and determined to participation in the
truth of God by God Himself in grace (179).
1. The
Hiddenness of God (179)
2. The Veracity of Man’s Knowledge of God (204)
Chapter VI: The Reality of God
Section 28: The Being of God as the One Who Loves in Freedom
God is who
He is in the act of His revelation. God seeks and creates fellowship between
Himself and us, and therefore He loves us. But He is this loving God without us
as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in the freedom of the Lord, who has His life
from Himself (257).
1. The Being
of God in Act (257)
2. The Being
of God as the One who loves (272)
3. The Being
of God in Freedom (297)
Section 29: The Perfections of God (322)
God lives
His perfect life in the abundance of many individual and distinct perfections.
Each of these is perfect in itself and in combination with all the others. For
whether it is a form of love in which God is free, or a form of freedom in
which God loves, it is nothing else but God Himself, His one, simple,
distinctive being (322).
Section 30: The Perfections of the Divine Loving
The
divinity of the love of God consists and confirms itself in the fact that in
Himself and in all His works God is gracious, merciful and patient, and at the
same time holy, righteous and wise (351).
1. The Grace
and Holiness of God (351)
2. The Mercy and Righteousness of God (368)
3. The
Patience and Wisdom of God (406)
Section 31: The Perfections of the Divine Freedom
The
divinity of the freedom of God consists and confirms itself in the fact that in
Himself and in all His works God is One, constant and eternal, and therewith
also omnipresent, omnipotent and glorious (440).
1. The Unity
and Omnipresence of God (440)
2. The
Constancy and Omnipotence of God (490)
3. The
Eternity and Glory of God (608)
Volume II: The Doctrine of God (continued)
(II.2 translated by G. W. Bromiley,
J. C. Campbell, Iain Wilson,
J. Strathearn McNab, Harold Knight,
and R. A. Stewart, 1957)
Chapter VII: The Election of God
Section 32: The Problem of a Correct Doctrine of the Election of God
The
doctrine of election is the sum of the Gospel because of all words that can be
said or heard it is the best: that God elects man; that God is for man too the
One who loves in freedom. It is grounded in the knowledge of Jesus Christ
because He is both the electing God and elected man in One. It is part of the
doctrine of God because originally God’s election of man is a predestination
not merely of man but of Himself. Its function is to bear basic testimony to
eternal, free and unchanging grace as the beginning of all the ways and works
of God (3).
1. The
Orientation of the Doctrine (3)
2. The
Foundation of the Doctrine (34)
3. The Place
of the Doctrine in Dogmatics (76)
Section 33: The Election of Jesus Christ
The
election of grace is the eternal beginning of all the ways and works of God in
Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ God in His free grace determines Himself for
sinful man and sinful man for Himself. He therefore takes upon Himself the
rejection of man with all its consequences, and elects man to participation in
His own glory (94).
1. Jesus
Christ, Electing and Elected (94)
2. The Eternal
Will of God in the Election of Jesus Christ (145)
Section 34: The Election of the Community (195)
The
election of grace, as the election of Jesus Christ, is simultaneously the
eternal election of the one community of God by the existence of which Jesus Christ
is to be attested to the whole world and the whole world summoned to faith in
Jesus Christ. This one community of God in its form as Israel has to serve the
representation of the divine judgment, in its form as the Church the
representation of divine mercy. In its form as Israel it is determined for
hearing, and in its form as the Church for believing the promise sent forth to
man. To the one elected community of God is given in the one case its passing,
and in the other its coming form (195).
1. Israel and
the Church (195)
2. The
Judgment and the Mercy of God (205)
3. The Promise
of God Heard and Believed (233)
4. The Passing
and the Coming Man (259)
Section 35: The Election of the Individual
The man who
is isolated over against God is as such rejected by God. But to be this man can
only be by the godless man’s own choice. The witness of the community of God to
every individual man consists in this: that this choice of the godless man is
void; that he belongs eternally to Jesus Christ and therefore is not rejected,
but elected by God in Jesus Christ; that the rejection which he deserved on
account of his perverse choice is borne and cancelled by Jesus Christ; and that
he is appointed to eternal life with God on the basis of the righteous, divine
decision. The promise of his election determines that as a member of the
community he himself shall be a bearer of its witness to the whole world. And
the revelation of his rejection can only
determine him to believe in Jesus Christ as the One by whom it has been borne
and cancelled (306).
1. Jesus
Christ, the Promise and Its Recipient (306)
2. The Elect
and the Rejected (340)
3. The
Determination of the Elect (410)
4. The
Determination of the Rejected (449)
Chapter VIII: The Command of God
Section 36: Ethics as a Task of the Doctrine of God
As the
doctrine of God’s command, ethics interprets the Law as the form of the Gospel,
i.e., as the sanctification which comes to man through the electing God.
Because Jesus Christ is the holy God and sanctified man in One, it has its
basis in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Because the God who claims man for
Himself makes Himself originally responsible for him, it forms part of the
doctrine of God. Its function is to bear primary witness to the grace of God in
so far as this is the saving engagement and commitment of man (509).
1. The Command
of God and the Ethical Problem (509)
2. The Way of Theological
Ethics (543)
Section 37: The Command as the Claim of God
As God is
gracious to us in Jesus Christ, His command is the claim which, when it is
made, has power over us, demanding that in all we do we admit that what God
does is right, and requiring that we give our free obedience to this demand (552).
1. The Basis
of the Divine Claim (552)
2. The Content
of the Divine Claim (566)
3. The Form of
the Divine Claim (583)
Section 38: The Command as the Decision of God
As God is
gracious to us in Jesus Christ, His command is the sovereign, definite and good
decision concerning the character of our actions—the decision from which we
derive, under which we stand and to which we continually move (631).
1. The
Sovereignty of the Divine Decision (631)
2. The Definiteness of the Divine Decision (661)
3. The
Goodness of the Divine Decision (708)
Section 39: The Command as the Judgment of God
As God is
gracious to us in Jesus Christ, He judges us. He judges us because it is His
will to treat us as His own for the sake of His own Son. He judges us as in His
Son’s death He condemns all our action as transgression, and by His Son’s
resurrection pronounces us righteous. He judges us in order that He may make us
free for everlasting life under His lordship (733).
1. The
Presupposition of the Divine Judgment (733)
2. The Execution of the Divine Judgment (742)
3. The Purpose
of the Divine Judgment (764)
Volume III: The Doctrine of Creation
(III.1 translated by J. W. Edwards,
O. Bussey, and Harold Knight, 1958)
Chapter IX: The Work of Creation
Section 40: Faith in God the Creator
The insight
that man owes his existence and form, together with all the reality distinct
from God, to God’s creation, is achieved only in the reception and answer of
the divine self-witness, that is, only in faith in Jesus Christ, i.e., in the
knowledge of the unity of Creator and creature actualised in Him, and in the
life in the present mediated by Him, under the right and in the experience of
the goodness of the Creator towards His creature (3).
Section 41: Creation and Covenant
Creation
come first in the series of works of the triune God, and is thus the beginning
of all the things distinct from God Himself. Since it contains in itself the
beginning of time, its historical reality eludes all historical observation and
account, and can be expressed in the biblical creation narratives only in the
form of pure saga. But according to this witness the purpose and therefore the
meaning of creation is to make possible the history of God’s covenant with man
which has its beginning, its centre and its culmination in Jesus Christ. The
history of this covenant is as much the goal of creation as creation itself is
the beginning of this history (42).
Section 42: The Yes of God the Creator
The work of
God the Creator consists particularly in the benefit that in the limits of its creatureliness
what He has created may be as it is actualised by Him, and be good as it is
justified by Him (339).
1. Creation as
Benefit (330)
2. Creation as Actualisation (344)
3. Creation as
Justification (366)
Volume III: The Doctrine of Creation (continued)
(III.2 translated by Harold Knight,
G. W. Bromiley, J. K. S. Reid, and R. H. Fuller, 1960)
Chapter X: The Creature
Section 43: Man as a Problem of Dogmatics
Because
man, living under heaven and on earth, is the creature whose relation to God is
revealed to us in the Word of God, he is the central object of the theological
doctrine of creation. As the man Jesus is Himself the revealing Word of God, He
is the source of our knowledge of the nature of man as created by God (3).
1. Man in the
Cosmos (3)
2. Man as an Object of Theological Knowledge
Section 44: Man as the Creature of God
The being
of man is the history which shows how one of God’s creatures, elected and
called by God, is caught up in personal responsibility before Him and proves
itself capable of fulfilling it (55).
1. Jesus, Man
for God (55)
2. Phenomena of the Human (71)
3. Real Man
(132)
Section 45: Man in His Determination as the Covenant-partner of God
That real man is
determined by God for life with God has its inviolable correspondence in the
fact that his creaturely being is a being in encounter—between I and Thou, man
and woman. It is human in this encounter, and in this humanity it is a likeness
of the being of its Creator and a being in hope in Him (203).
1. Jesus, Man
for Other Men (203)
2. The Basic Form of Humanity (222)
3. Humanity as
Likeness and Hope (285)
Section 46: Man as Soul and Body
Through the
Spirit of God, man is the subject, form and life of a substantial organism, the
soul of his body—wholly and simultaneously both, in ineffaceable difference,
inseparable unity, and indestructible order (325).
1. Jesus,
Whole Man (325)
2. The Spirit as the Basis of Soul and Body (344)
3. Soul and
Body in their Interconnexion (366)
4. Soul and
Body in their Particularity (394)
5. Soul and
Body in their Order (418)
Section 47: Man in His Time
Man lives
in the allotted span of his present, past and future life. He who was before
him and will be after him, and who therefore fixes the boundaries of his being,
is the eternal God, his Creator and Covenant-partner. He is the hope in which man
may live in his time (417).
1. Jesus, Lord
of Time (437)
2. Given Time (511)
3. Allotted
Time (553)
4. Beginning
Time (572)
5. Ending Time
(587)
Volume III: The Doctrine of Creation (continued)
(III.3 translated by G. W. Bromiley
and R. J. Ehrlich, 1960)
Chapter XI: The Creator and His Creature
Section 48: The Doctrine of Providence, its Basis and Form
The doctrine
of providence deals with the history of created being as such, in the sense
that in every respect and in its whole span this proceeds under the fatherly
care of God the Creator, whose will is done and is to be seen in His election
of grace, and therefore in the history of the covenant between Himself and man,
and therefore in Jesus Christ (3).
1. The Concept
of Divine Providence (3)
2. The Christian Belief in Providence (14)
3. The
Christian Doctrine of Providence (33)
Section 49: God the Father as Lord of His Creature
God fulfills his
fatherly lordship over His creature by preserving, accompanying and ruling the
whole course of its earthly existence. He does this as His mercy is revealed
and active in the creaturely sphere in Jesus Christ, and the lordship of His
Son is thus manifested in it (58).
1. The Divine
Preserving (58)
2. The Divine
Accompanying (90)
3. The Divine
Ruling (154)
4. The
Christian under the Universal Lordship of God the Father (239)
Section 50: God and Nothingness
Under the control
of God world-occurrence is threatened and actually corrupted by the nothingness
which is inimical to the will of the Creator and therefore to the nature of His
good creature. God has judged nothingness by His mercy as revealed and
effective in Jesus Christ. Pending the final revelation that it is already
refuted and abolished, God determines the sphere, the manner, the measure and
the subordinate relationship to His Word and work in which it may still operate
(289).
1. The Problem
of Nothingness (289)
2. The Misconception of Nothingness (295)
3. The
Knowledge of Nothingness (302)
4. The Reality
of Nothingness (349)
Section 51: The Kingdom of Heaven, the Ambassadors of God and their Opponents
God’s action
in Jesus Christ, and therefore His lordship over His creature, is called the
“kingdom of heaven” because first and supremely it claims for itself the upper
world. From this God selects and sends His messengers, the angels, who precede
the revelation and doing of His will on earth as objective and authentic
witnesses, who accompany it as faithful servants of God and man, and who
victoriously ward off the opposing forms and forces of chaos (369).
1. The Limits
of Angelology (369)
2. The Kingdom
of Heaven (418)
Volume III: The Doctrine of Creation (continued)
(III.4 translated by A. T. MacKay,
T. H. L. Parker, Harold Knight,
Henry A. Kennedy, and John Marks,
1961)
Chapter XII: The Command of God the Creator (III/4)
Section 52: Ethics as a Task of the Doctrine of Creation
The task of
special ethics in the context of the doctrine of creation is to show to what
extent the one command of the one God who is gracious to man in Jesus Christ is
also the command of his Creator and therefore already the sanctification of the
creaturely action and abstention of man (3).
1. The Problem
of Special Ethics (3)
2. God the
Creator as Commander (32)
Section 53: Freedom before God
It is the
will of God the Creator that man, as His creature, shall be responsible before
Him. In particular, His command says that man is to keep His day as a day of
worship, freedom and joy, that he is to confess Him in his heart and with his
mouth and that he is to come to Him with his requests (47).
1. The Holy
Day (47)
2. Confession (73)
3. Prayer
(87)
Section 54: Freedom in Fellowship
As God the
Creator calls man to Himself, He also directs him to his fellow-man. The divine
command affirms in particular that in the encounter of man and woman, in the
relationship between parents and children and outwards from near to distant
neighbours, man may affirm, honour and enjoy the other with himself and himself
with the other (116).
1. Man and
Woman (116)
2. Parents and Children (240)
3. Near and
Distant Neighbors (285)
As God the
Creator calls man to Himself and turns him to his fellow-man, He orders him to
honour his own life and that of every other man as a loan, and to secure it
against all caprice, in order that it may be used in this service and in
preparation for this service (324).
1. Respect for
Life (324)
2. The
Protection of Life (397)
3. The Active
Life (470)
Section 56: Freedom in Limitation
God the
Creator wills and claims the man who belongs to Him, is united to his
fellow-man and under obligation to affirm his own life and that of others, with
the special intention indicated by the limit of time, vocation and honour which
He has already set him as his Creator and Lord (565).
1. The Unique
Opportunity (565)
2. Vocation (595)
3. Honour (647)
Volume IV: The Doctrine of Reconciliation
(IV.1 translated by G. W. Bromiley,
1956)
Chapter XIII: The Subject-Matter and Problems of the Doctrine of Reconciliation
Section 57: The Work of God the Reconciler
The
subject-matter, origin and content of the message received and proclaimed by
the Christian community is at its heart the free act of the faithfulness of God
in which He takes the lost cause of man, who has denied Him as Creator and in
so doing ruined himself as creature, and makes it His own in Jesus Christ,
carrying it through to its goal and in that way maintaining and manifesting His
own glory in the world (3).
1. God with Us
(3)
2. The
Covenant as the Presupposition of Reconciliation (22)
3. The
Fulfillment of the Broken Covenant (67)
Section 58: The Doctrine of Reconciliation (Survey)
The content
of the doctrine of reconciliation is the knowledge of Jesus Christ who is (1)
very God, that is, the God who humbles Himself, and therefore the reconciling
God, (2) very man, that is, man exalted and therefore reconciled by God, and (3)
in the unity of the two the guarantor and witness of our atonement.
This threefold
knowledge of Jesus Christ includes the knowledge of the sin of man: (1) his
pride, (2) his sloth and (3) his falsehood—the knowledge of the event in which
reconciliation is made: (1) his justification, (2) his sanctification and (3)
his calling—and the knowledge of the work of the Holy Spirit in (1) the
gathering, (2) the upbuilding and (3) the sending of the community, and of the
being of Christians in Jesus Christ (1) in faith, (2) in love and (3) in hope (79).
1. The Grace
of God in Jesus Christ (79)
2. The Being
of Man in Jesus Christ [faith, love, hope] (92)
3. Jesus
Christ the Mediator (122)
4. The Three
Forms of the Doctrine of Reconciliation (128)
Chapter XIV: Jesus Christ, the Lord as Servant
Section 59: The Obedience of the Son of God
That Jesus
Christ is very God is shown in His way into the far country in which He the
Lord became a servant. For in the majesty of the true God it happened that the
eternal Son of the eternal Father became obedient by offering and humbling
Himself to be the brother of man, to take His place with the transgressor, to
judge him by judging Himself and dying in his place. But God the Father raised
Him from the dead, and in so doing recognised and gave effect to His death and
passion as a satisfaction made for us, as our conversion to God, and therefore
as our redemption from death to life (157).
1. The Way of
the Son into the Far Country (157)
2. The Judge
Judged in Our Place (211)
3. The Verdict
of the Father (283)
Section 60: The Pride and Fall of Man
The verdict
of God pronounced in the resurrection of Jesus Christ crucified for us
discloses who it was that was set aside in His death, the man who willed to be
as God, himself lord, the judge of good and evil, his own helper, thus
withstanding the lordship of the grace of God and making himself irreparably,
radically and totally guilty before Him both individually and corporately (358).
1. The Man of
Sin in the Light of the Obedience of the Son of God (358)
2. The Pride
of Man (413)
3. The Fall of
Man (478)
Section 61: The Justification of Man
The right
of God established in the death of Jesus Christ, and proclaimed in His
resurrection in defiance of the wrong of man, is as such the basis of the new
and corresponding right of man. Promised to man in Jesus Christ, hidden in Him
and only to be revealed in Him, it cannot be attained by any thought of effort
or achievement on the part of man. But the reality of it calls for faith in
every man as a suitable acknowledgment and appropriation and application (514).
1. The Problem
of the Doctrine of Justification (514)
2. The
Judgment of God (528)
3. The Pardon
of Man (568)
4. Justification
by Faith Alone (608)
The Holy
Spirit is the awakening power in which Jesus Christ has formed and continually
renews His body, i.e., His own earthly-historical form of existence, the one
holy catholic and apostolic Church. This is Christendom, i.e., the gathering of
the community of those whom already before all others He has made willing and
ready for life under the divine verdict executed in His death and revealed in
His resurrection from the dead. It is therefore the provisional representation
of the whole world of humanity justified in Him (643).
1. The Work of
the Holy Spirit (643)
2. The Being
of the Church [one, holy, catholic, apostolic] (650)
3. The Time of
the Community (725)
Section 63: The Holy Spirit and the Christian Faith
The Holy
Spirit is the awakening power in which Jesus Christ summons a sinful man to His
community and therefore as a Christian to believe in Him: to acknowledge and
know and confess Him as the Lord who for him became a servant; to be sorry both
on his own behalf and on that of the world in face of the victory over his
pride and fall which has taken place in Him; and again on his own behalf and
therefore on that of the world to be confident in face of the establishment of
his new right and life which has taken place in Him (740).
1. Faith and
Its Object (740)
2. The Act of
Faith (757)
Volume IV: The Doctrine of Reconciliation (continued)
(IV.2 translated by G. W. Bromiley,
1958)
Chapter XV: Jesus Christ, the Servant as Lord (IV/2)
Section 64: The Exaltation of the Son of Man
Jesus
Christ, the Son of God and Lord who humbled Himself to be a servant, is also
the Son of Man exalted as this servant to be the Lord, the new and true and
royal man who participates in the being and life and lordship and act of God
and honours and attests Him, and as such the Head and Representative and Savior
of all other men, the origin and content and norm of the divine direction given
us in the work of the Holy Spirit (3).
1. The Second
Problem of the Doctrine of Reconciliation (3)
2. The
Homecoming of the Son of Man (20)
A. The
divine election of grace as the basis of the exaltation of man in Christ
B. The
incarnation as the historical fulfillment of man’s exaltation
C. The
resurrection and ascension of Christ as the revelation of man’s exaltation
3. The Royal
Man (154)
A. The
gospel witness to the distinctiveness of Jesus Christ as the Royal Man
B. Jesus
Christ the Royal Man as the Image of God
C. The
life of Jesus Christ
D. The
cross in the life of Christ
4. The
Direction of the Son (264)
Section 65: The Sloth and Misery of Man
The
direction of God, given in the resurrection of Jesus Christ who was crucified
for us, discloses who is overcome in His death. It is the man who would not
make use of his freedom, but was content with the low level of a self-enclosed
being, thus being irremediably and radically and totally subject to his own
stupidity, inhumanity, dissipation and anxiety, and delivered up to his own
death (378).
1. The Man of
Sin in the Light of the Lordship of the Son of Man (378)
2. The Sloth
of Man (403)
3. The Misery of Man (483)
Section 66: The Sanctification of Man
The
exaltation of man, which in defiance of his reluctance has been achieved in the
death and declared in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is as such the creation
of his new form of existence as the faithful covenant-partner of God. It rests
wholly and utterly on his justification before God, and like this it is
achieved only in the one Jesus Christ, but effectively and authoritatively for
all in Him. It is self-attested, by its operation among them as His direction,
in the life of a people of men who in virtue of the call to discipleship which
has come to them, of their awakening to conversion, of the praise of their
works, of the mark of the cross which is laid upon them, have the freedom even
as sinners to render obedience and to establish themselves as the saints of God
in a provisional offering of the thankfulness for which the whole world is
ordained by the act of the love of God (499).
1. Justification
and Sanctification (499)
2. The Holy
One and the Saints (511)
3. The Call to
Discipleship (533)
4. The
Awakening to Conversion (553)
5. The Praise
of Works (584)
6. The Dignity
of the Cross (598)
Section 67: The Holy Spirit and the Upbuilding of the Christian Community
The Holy
Spirit is the quickening power with which Jesus the Lord builds up Christianity
in the world as His body, i.e., as the earthly-historical form of His own
existence, causing it to grow, sustaining and ordering it as the communion of
His saints, and thus fitting it to give a provisional representation of the
sanctification of all humanity and human life as it has taken place in Him (614).
1. The True
Church (614)
2. The Growth
of the Community (641)
3. The
Upholding of the Community (660)
4. The Order
of the Community (676)
Section 68: The Holy Spirit and Christian Love
The Holy
Spirit is the quickening power in which Jesus Christ places a sinful man in His
community and thus gives him the freedom, in active self-giving to God and his
fellows as God’s witness, to correspond to the love in which God has drawn him
to Himself and raised him up, overcoming his sloth and misery (727).
1. The Problem
of Christian Love (727)
2. The Basis
of Love (751)
3. The Act of
Love (783)
4. The Manner
of Love (824)
Volume IV: The Doctrine of Reconciliation (continued)
(IV.3.1 translated by G. W.
Bromiley, 1961)
Chapter XVI: Jesus Christ, the True Witness (IV/3)
Section 69: The Glory of the Mediator
“Jesus
Christ as attested to us in Holy Scripture is the one Word of God whom we must
hear and whom we must trust and obey in life and in death” (Article 1, Barmen
Declaration) (3).
1. The Third
Problem of the Doctrine of Reconciliation (3)
2. The Light
of Life (38)
3. Jesus Is
Victor (165)
A. The
historicity of Christ’s prophetic work
B. The
history of Christian knowledge established by Christ’s prophetic work
C. The
history of Christ’s prophetic work
4. The Promise
of the Spirit (274)
Section 70: The Falsehood and Condemnation of Man
As the
effective promise of God encounters man in the power of the resurrection of
Jesus Christ, man proves himself to be a liar in whose thinking, speech and
conduct his liberation by and for the free God transforms itself into an
attempt to claim God by and for himself as the man who is bound in his
self-assertion—a perversion in which he can only destroy himself and finally
perish (368).
1. The True
Witness (368)
2. The
Falsehood of Man (434)
3. The
Condemnation of Man (461)
Volume IV: The Doctrine of Reconciliation
(IV.3.2 translated by G. W.
Bromiley, 1962)
Section 71: The Vocation of Man
The Word of
the living Jesus Christ is the creative call by which He awakens man to an
active knowledge of the truth and thus receives him into the new standing of
the Christian, namely, into a particular fellowship with Himself, thrusting him
as His afflicted but well-equipped witness into the service of His prophetic
work (481).
1. Man in the
Light of Life (481)
2. The Event
of Vocation (497)
3. The Goal of
Vocation (520)
4. The
Christian as Witness (554)
5. The
Christian in Affliction (614)
6. The
Liberation of the Christian (647)
Section 72: The Holy Spirit and the Sending of the Christian Community
The Holy
Spirit is the enlightening power of the living Lord Jesus Christ in which He
confesses the community called by Him as His body, i.e., as His own
earthly-historical form of existence, by entrusting to it the ministry of His
prophetic Word and therefore the provisional representation of the calling of
all humanity and indeed of all creatures as it has taken place in Him. He does
this by sending it among the peoples as His own people, ordained for its part
to confess Him before all men, to call them to Him and thus to make known to
the whole world that the covenant between God and man concluded in Him is the
first and final meaning of is history, and that His future manifestation is
already here and now its great, effective and living hope (681).
1. The People
of God in World-Occurrence (History) (681)
2. The
Community for the World (672)
3. The Task of
the Community (795)
4. The
Ministry of the Community (830)
Section 73: The Holy Spirit and Christian Hope
The Holy
Spirit is the enlightening power in which Jesus Christ, overcoming the
falsehood and condemnation of sinful man, causes him as a member of His
community to become one who may move towards his final and yet also his
immediate future in hope in Him, i.e., in confident, patient and cheerful
expectation of His new coming to consummate the revelation of the will of God
fulfilled in Him (902).
1. The Subject
of Hope and Hope (902)
2. Life in Hope (928)
Volume IV: The
Doctrine of Reconciliation (continued)
(IV.4 translated
by G. W. Bromiley, 1960)
Section
75: The Foundation of the Christian Life
A man’s turning to faithfulness to
God, and consequently to calling upon Him, is the work of this faithful God which,
perfectly accomplished in the history of Jesus Christ, in virtue of the
awakening, quickening and illuminating power of this history become a new
beginning of life as his baptism with the Holy Spirit.
The first step of this life of
faithfulness to God, the Christian life, is a man’s baptism with water, which
by his own decision is requested of the community and which is administered by
the community, as the binding confession of his obedience, conversion and hope,
made in prayer for God’s grace, wherein he honours the freedom of this grace (2).
1. Baptism with the Holy Spirit (3)
2. Baptism with Water (41)
Volume IV: The
Doctrine of Reconciliation (continued)
(IV.4, The
Christian Life, translated by G. W. Bromiley [Eerdmans, 1981]
Chapter XVII: The Command of God the Reconciler
Section
74: Ethics as a Task of the Doctrine of Reconciliation
In the context of the doctrine of
reconciliation, special ethics serves to demonstrate how far the command of the
one God is centrally the command of the Lord of the covenant, in which the
action of sinful man is determined, ordered, and limited by the free grace of
the faithful God manifested and operative in Jesus Christ (3).
1. The Central Problem of Special
Ethics (3)
2. The Gracious God as the Commanding
God (12)
Section
76: The Children and Their Father
The obedience of Christians follows
from the fact that in Jesus Christ they may recognize God as his Father and
theirs, and themselves as his children. Obedience is their action to the extent
that it is ventured in invocation of God, in which, liberated thereto by his
Holy Spirit, they may take God at his word as their Father and take themselves
seriously as his children (49).
1. The Father (49)
2. The Children (70)
3. Invocation (85)
Section
77: Zeal for the Honor of God
Christians are people who know about
the self-declaration of God, whose beginning has already taken place and whose
consummation is still to come. As such they suffer because he is so well known
and yet also so unknown to the world, the church, and, above all, to
themselves. They pray that he will bring his self-declaration to its goal with
the manifestation of his light that destroys all darkness. Meanwhile, in
accordance with this prayer they have a zeal for the primacy of the validity of
his Word in the world, in the church, and above all in their own hearts and
lives (111).
1. The Great Passion (111)
2. The Known and Unknown God (115)
3. Hallowed be Thy Name (153)
4. The Precedence of the Word of God (168)
Section
78: The Struggle for Human Righteousness
Christians pray to God that he will
cause his righteousness to appear and dwell on a new earth under a new heaven.
Meanwhile they act in accordance with their prayer as people who are
responsible for the rule of human righteousness, that is, for the preservation
and renewal, the deepening and extending, of the divinely ordained human
safeguards of human rights, human freedom, and human peace on earth (205).
1. Revolt Against Disorder (205)
2. The Lordless Powers (213)
3. Thy
Kingdom Come (233)
4. Fiat Iustitua (260)
