InternationalJournalofSystematicTheology Volume4 Number3 November2002 Much Ado about Nothing: Karl Barth’s Being Unable to Do Nothing about Nothingness JOHN C. McDOWELL* Abstract: Often a source of concern to commentators about the adequacy of Barth’stheology ishis treatment ofevil, in particularChurchDogmatics III/3 §50 with its depiction of evil as das Nichtige (the nothingness). Against the impressionthatBarthhaslittletimeinhissystematictheologyfordoingjustice to evil it is worth attempting a reading that indicates the importance of this sectionandwhatitseemsthatBarthisdoingwithit.DasNichtigebelongstoa conflictualanddramaticaccount,andtalkofits,forBarth,‘absurd’‘existence’ belongs there. The dramatic flavour of this discussion further impresses that thereismoretobesaidabout‘Barthonevil’thananyfocusontheparadoxical and negative language used to depict it could express – this ‘more’ should come specifically through ethics. The theological microcosm of Church Dogmatics §50 is highly suggestive of, but notonlyof,whatBarth‘doeswithevil’.Thecontentionofthereadinggivenbythis article is that these reflections on evil constitute notable steps that enable one to read volume IV,and particularlythe fragments ofwhatwouldhave been IV/4had Barth lived to complete them, as, in some sense, §50’s detailing and dramatized expression.1 As such, Barth’s much misunderstood and maligned negative and paradoxical depictions of evil need to be read as expressions disabling any simple systematic theologizing of evil. Put starkly, das Nichtige cannot and should not be theologically systematized since it is disruptive of grand theological schemes, and can best be portrayed through this form of ‘mythopoetic’ discourse within the Christian grammar of God’s-being-for-the-world-in-Christ.2 * NewCollege, MoundPlace, Edinburgh EH1 2LX,Scotland, UK. 1 SeeCDIII/3,p.xii.ProblematicisHansSchwarz’sconcentratingexclusivelyon§50in Evil:AHistoricalandTheologicalPerspective,trans.MarkW.Worthing(Minneapolis: FortressPress,1995),pp. 163–8. 2 Ihaveborrowedandadaptedtheterm‘mythopoetic’fromRosemaryRadfordRuether, ‘The Left Hand of God in the Theology of Karl Barth: Karl Barth as a Mythopoetic Theologian’, Journal of Religious Thought25(1968–9),pp. 3–26. PublishedbyBlackwellPublishersLtd2002,108CowleyRoad,OxfordOX41JF,UK and350MainStreet,Malden,MA02148,USA. 320 John C. McDowell Undoing contextless theodicy Composed in the aftermath of the physical, diplomatic and psychological ruins of post-war Europe, CD III will nevertheless disappoint anyone expecting Barth’s commentary on, or even explicit theological response to, the cultural landscape. Frequently critics despair of the foolishness and irresponsibility of a writer whose mention of the Jews is primarily that of the Gotteskranken (God-sick),3 whose theologicalaccountofwomenapatriarchalhangover,4andhisdelvingintopolitics (especially those of the Cold War) laughably uninformed and arbitrary.5 Furthermore,recalledisthefactthatBarth’sresponseto1914wastoaskquestions ofhisLiberalteachers’theology.HasthetheologianwhoclaimedtoholdtheBible inonehandandthenewspaperintheotherextendedhisarmstotheirfullspan,thus preventing their meeting? Suggestive of something more culturally significant is Pattison’s general observation that ‘concern with the void’ is regarded by ‘a considerable body of opinion’ as having been a product of the general angst-ridden mood and therefore quicklydismissable(tooquickly dismissableinanygenealogicalcritique) asbeing ‘somewhatpasse´’.6Indeed,whatCDIIIrepresentsisaverydifferentstyleofpost- warexplosionfromthatofthe1922editionofDerRo¨merbrief.Speculationonthe different impacts of the two periods on this Barth of 1922 and that of 1945 (CD III/1) is tempting, particularly since the latter Barth had, through bitter experience and the way he came to read the Scriptures, come to expect less of people and movements. 1917’s Red-Revolution had affected him deeply. It is somewhat simplistic to complain, then, asHorton does, that Barth was not as good a prophet to the post-Second World War age of anxiety as he was to the age of over- 3 See, e.g., Eugene F. Rogers, Sexuality and the Christian Body (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999),chs.6and7;MarquardtcitedinKatherineSonderegger,ThatJesusWasBorna Jew: Karl Barth’s ‘Doctrine of Israel’ (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State UniversityPress,1992),p.146.In1949BarthexplainedthecontinuedgraceofGodto theJews,anddeclaredthattheJew‘isthemirrorinwhichweseeourselvesasweare, i.e. we see how bad we all are’. Karl Barth, Against the Stream: Shorter Post-War Writings,ed. Ronald Gregor Smith (London: SCMPress,1954),p. 198. 4 Assessmentsdifferastowhetherthiswasacorrectable‘lapse’intoculturalpatriarchy, orrathera‘necessary’productofan‘irredeemable’theology.See,forexample,Graham Ward, ‘The Erotics of Redemption – After Karl Barth’, Theology and Sexuality 8 (1998), pp. 52–72; Rogers, Sexuality and the Christian Body, chs. 6 and 8; Katherine Sonderegger,‘BarthandFeminism’,inJohnWebster,ed.,TheCambridgeCompanion toKarlBarth(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,2000),pp.258–73;Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk: Towards a Feminist Theology (Boston: Beacon, 1983),p. 98. 5 SeeReinholdNiebuhr,EssaysinAppliedChristianity(NewYork:MeridianLivingAge Books,1959),pp.184,186;RobinW.Lovin,ChristianFaithandPublicChoices:The Social Ethics of Barth, Brunner, and Bonhoeffer (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), pp.41–2. 6 GeorgePattison,Agnosis:TheologyintheVoid(Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996),p.2. (cid:223)BlackwellPublishersLtd2002 Barth on Nothingness 321 confidence which preceded it.7 Through his developing Christology, Barth had learnedoftheimportanceofChristianhope,thatwhichconsequentlytheologically underminesthebasisofthisculturaldistressandthereforecreatestheverydifferent theological mood from that of 1922. So in 1948 he declares: It iseasy to be afraid anywhere in the world today. The wholeofthe Western world, the whole of Europe is afraid, afraid of the East. But we must not be afraid ... Everything is in the hands of God.8 The cultural impact on the Barth of 1947 is most clearly displayed in his discourse of das Nichtige, suggesting a conversation (an admiringly critical one) with Heidegger and Sartre (CD III/3, p. 334). Pattison attempts to identify the function of this language as being to ‘harmonize faith in the goodness and omnipotence of God and a vision of the world as fallen’.9 This use of the melodic image, ‘harmonize’, is very interesting. Despite Barth’s best intentions (described below) Pattison regards him as characterizable by metaphors of euphonics, or musical harmony. For the theodicy-task, evil is a ‘problem’ for theorizing to solve. Ears are trained to hear that the seemingly discordant notes actually offer their own contribution to the overarching form and structure of the melody, a general perspective that frequently prevents speculation on how specific instances, and/or what Marilyn McCord Adams has recently named ‘horrendous evils’ (one should add ‘pointless’),10 make their contribution. In such, particularly in the ‘greater good’ theses, discussions of evil’s place in the world tend to utilize language of ‘justification’ and ‘necessity’.11 The existence of a good and all-powerful God, so some forms of the story go, can be justified in permitting evil to exist since it is ‘necessary’ for the achievement of a ‘greater good’. 7 WalterM.Horton,‘HowBarthHasInfluencedMe’,TheologyToday13(1956),p.359. 8 Barth, Against the Stream,p. 99. 9 Pattison, Agnosis,p. 7. 10 SeeMarilynMcCordAdams,‘HorrendousEvilsandtheGoodnessofGod’,Aristotelian Society:SupplementaryVolume63(1989),pp.297–310.Wykstrapointsoutthattalkof waste and meaninglessness is person-specific, and therefore cannot rule out the possibility that within the divine perspective there are no pointless sufferings. Stephen Wykstra,‘TheHumeanObstacletoEvidentialArgumentsfromSuffering:OnAvoiding theEvilsof‘‘Appearance’’’,InternationalJournalforPhilosophyofReligion16(1984), pp.80–1.This,surely,begsthequestionofwhethertalkofthejustificationofsuffering is itself not also person-specific, and is ironic in utilizing an argument that Kant had thought,evenin1791,detestabletohumanmoralsensibilities.ImmanuelKant,‘Onthe MiscarriageofallPhilosophicalTrialsinTheodicy’,inReligionWithintheBoundaries ofMereReasonAndOtherWritings,trans.anded.AllenWoodandGeorgeDiGiovanni (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press,1998),pp.17–30(pp.19–20). 11 Strangely Hebblethwaite declares that ‘The Judaeo-Christian ... sees the problem of evil first and foremost as involving a demand for explanation and justification’, and cites Job and Ivan Karamazov. Brian Hebblethwaite, Evil, Suffering and Religion (London: Sheldon Press, 1976), p. 7. But would an explanation even have been sufficient forthem? (cid:223)BlackwellPublishersLtd2002 322 John C. McDowell Barthdeniesthepossibilityofconstructing(theengineeringmetaphorisapt)a ‘theodicy’ in this sense. That type of apologetic is not open to the professor who persistently maintained that apologetics could not be a rationally performed task separablefromdogmaticdescription.Hesawapologetics,asperformedby‘natural theology’, as seeking to construct a ‘Being’ (or Ultimate ‘Thing’) from the fragments of our misplaced reasoning from first principles (foundations), a Being that can be no-God. HereiswhereBarthisfrequentlymisunderstood,andSchulweis’commenton ‘theodicy[as]...asymptomofman’senslavementtomoralandlogicalcriteriaand norms irrelevant to the conduct of the divinely unique One’, could accentuate common suspicion of Barthian anti-intellectualism and irrationalism.12 Rather, the task Barth believes himself able to perform in honesty is something contextually Christian outside ofthe framework of which we create distorted images,and even idols, mistaking them for the living God. Barth was famously fond not only of Kant’s critique of metaphysics as impossible for pure reason but also Feuerbach’s critique of religion. Something similar permeates his discussions in §50 with regard to evil- and sin-talk.They,andalsodiscourseof‘goodness’and‘omnipotence’,then,cannotbe abstracted from their proper theological grammar without serious distortion of meaning (see, e.g., CD III/3, pp. 350–1, 365–6), even suggesting something is wrong with appeals to ‘commonsense notions of evil’.13 In proceeding to rigorously ‘examine’ or give a ‘report’, if such a static metaphor maybeused,thenature ofsintheologically (orrather christologically, or betterstill,trinitarianly)Barthmayprovideadescriptionthatoverlapswith,andcan evendrawfrom,certainthemesoftheodicy-projectsanalogically(CDIII/3,p.295). Exploring the nature of sin and evil, that which is declared to be a problem before God(and notGodaproblem before it),14may well lead to certain clarifications of thesortsofwaysinwhichitisappropriateandinappropriate tospeakofGod’sand creation’s relations toevil. Hick,however,demonstrates afailure tounderstand the factthatthisisverydifferentfromsystematically‘strain[ing]aftercompletenessand compactness’ concerning evil (CD III/3, p. 295), and that done non-theologically, 12 H.M.Schulweis,‘KarlBarth’sJob’,JewishPhilosophicalQuarterlyReview 65(1975), pp.156–67(p.157). 13 MichaelL.Peterson,GodandEvil: AnIntroductiontotheIssues(Boulder:Westview Press,1998),p. 10. JohnWebster, Barth’sMoralTheology: HumanAction in Barth’s Thought(Edinburgh:T.&T.Clark,1998),p.69:‘Barth’sChristologicaldetermination ofsinisnotsomuchanattempttodislocate‘‘theological’’from‘‘empirical’’reality,as an argument born of a sense that human persons are characteristically self-deceived.’ Theologically speaking, Webster’s second sub-clause inverts Barth’s move – Barth’s ‘Christological determination of sin is ... an argument born of a sense that’ God’s commercewiththeworld,andinitslightwhathumanbeingis,hasbeendisclosedinthe personof Jesus(see CDIV/2,p.387). 14 Schulweis’ claim about Barth’s anthropo-dicy rather than theo-dicy (since humanity needs justification) requires qualification lest it be associated with an inversion of theodical strategies. (cid:223)BlackwellPublishersLtd2002 Barth on Nothingness 323 whenheclaimsthatBarth’sdiscourseondasNichtigeis‘aninfringementofhisban upon speculative theorizing, and from outside that thought world’.15 To return to the musicology metaphor, it would appear more appropriate to arguethatBarth’stheologicalcompositionallowsforthediscordantnotes(sin,evil andsuffering)tobeheardafterafashion(butitisthenatureofthis‘afterafashion’ that is highly controversial), and yet these are notes that are themselves, while not simply reducible into the melody, drawn upon symphonically to complexify the piece: ‘the break itself and as such will be reproduced and reflected in our knowledge and its presentation’ (CD III/3, p. 295). To change the metaphor, it is not that Barth objects to the use of words to describe evil, but rather to the pseudo-scientific grammar of theodicies – in other words, their comprehensive explanatoriness. The unjustifiability of (un)resident evil Divine conflict: the evilness of evil When Donald MacKinnon claims that Paul ‘writes not as if he would provide a solution, but rather as if he would lay the texture of a problem bare’ he displays somethingofhisownwayofdoingtheology.16Itisinthislayingbare,orforBarth in the provision of a report, that the exposure of tragic particularities and unsystematizable ambiguities of ‘reading’ the world prevent MacKinnon from voicing any easy talk of ‘a synthesis in which reconciliation’ is achieved. Barth’s own complaints about theodicy-projects, as he perceived and knew them, are contentful also. The focus issimilarly on the manner of resolution, or at least toleration, of the relation between ‘Creator, creature and their co-existence, and the intrusion upon them of the undeniable reality of nothingness’ (CD III/3, p.365).Barthistrinitarianly compelled todevelopadoctrine ofGodasbeing-for- creationinsuchawaythatthe‘humanityofGod’entailsthattheeventofthecross is not a moment of pathos, something episodic against which MacKinnon also complains, within an otherwise impassible Godhead.17 Instead, in Barth’s post- Second World War sense of the self-determined ‘humanity of God’, this cross of theOneraisedispreciselywhereGodismostidentifiableasbeingGod(andwhere sin is displayed) as an-involved-being-for-the-other, something which kenotic language of ‘giving-up’ cannot fully do justice to.18 Or, as MacKinnon puts it, 15 J.Hick,EvilandtheGodofLove,2ndedn.(Basingstoke:Macmillan,1977),pp.135–6. 16 D.M. MacKinnon, Borderlands of Theology And Other Essays (London: Lutterworth, 1968), p.156. 17 D.M. MacKinnon, Themes in Theology: The Three-Fold Cord (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1987),p. 232. 18 Similarly even Moltmann’s more subtle divine passibilism slips when claiming a ‘divineself-emptyinglove[inwhich]theSonofGodabandonedhisdivineidentity’in the godforsakenness of the cross.The citation isfrom Richard Bauckham, Moltmann: Messianic Theology in the Making (Basingstoke: Marshall Morgan & Scott, 1987), p. (cid:223)BlackwellPublishersLtd2002 324 John C. McDowell kenosis ‘is not strange or alien to His being’,19 but rather, he continues in incarnationallyrevisingthesenseofdivineomnipotence,God’s‘supremeassertion in the setting of a deeply estranged world’.20 Barth’s move is less the simplistic claim that theodicy, by being in its very nature formed-reflection, trivializes suffering21 and more a theological complaint that its precise manner of understanding the place of evil in the world is domesticating. Hence it is the intolerability of das Nichtige that is §50’s main concern,something which theodicy isindanger oflosing. §50opens,forinstance, withthestrikingstatementthat‘ThereisoppositionandresistancetoGod’sworld- dominion’ (CD III/3, p. 289). Consequently, Barth rejects theodicies in which evil and sin are worked into the whole system (either dualistically as necessary antitheses,ormonisticallyinordertocontributetothegood),andthereinentailthat these become necessary and/or even good (CD IV/1, pp. 374–87). Specifically he rejects Schopenhauerian pessimism (CD III/1, pp. 335ff.); and anti-dualistic differentiations between das Nichtige and creation’s Schattenseitte (see CD III/3, pp.296ff.).Moreover,hehesitatestodiscussdemonologyinviewofthetemptation to fit Satan into a legitimate and proper place within creation. These various perspectives subtly conceal ‘genuine nothingness’ and fabricate ‘a kind of alibi undercoverofwhichitcannotberecognizedandcanthuspursueitsdangerousand disruptive ways the more unfeared and unhampered’ (CD III/3, p. 299). ItistheradicalnessandruthlessnessofdasNichtige,orinRuether’swords‘the evilness of evil’, that Barth wants to assert and refuse any possible domestication and justification of.22 This Barth tends to emphasize in three main ways: by utilizing metaphors of conflict; by acknowledging it as atopos (homeless) with regard to both Creator and creature; and, by conceiving its threateningness. Bounded conflict Given the kind of talk of God as free-to-love, whose electing and creating for purposesofcovenantfellowshipingrace,andwhoseparticipationinthelifeofhis creature culminated in the cross, that which Barth had already exposed the 70,myemphasis;cf.Ju¨rgenMoltmann,TheCrucifiedGod:TheCrossofChristasthe FoundationandCriticismofChristianTheology,trans.R.A.WilsonandJohnBowden (London: SCM Press, 1974, pp. 25ff.). However, Moltmann’s notion that the cross is indicative ofthetriune relationality ismore tothepoint.See,e.g,JewishMonotheism and Christian Doctrine: A Dialogue between Pinchas Lapide and Ju¨rgen Moltmann, trans. L.Swidler (Philadelphia: FortressPress,1981),p. 54. 19 MacKinnon, Themesin Theology, p.235. 20 MacKinnon, Themesin Theology, p.155. 21 Some examples of this particular complaint are D.M. MacKinnon, The Problem of Metaphysics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), p. 169; David Tracy, ‘Saving From Evil: Salvation and Evil Today’, in The Fascination of Evil, eds. HermannHa¨ringandDavidTracy,Concilium1998/1(London:SCMPress,1998),pp. 107–16(p.114). 22 Ruether, ‘The Left Handof God’,p. 6; cf. CDIII/3, p. 299. (cid:223)BlackwellPublishersLtd2002 Barth on Nothingness 325 christological grammar to even before II/2, it is unsurprising that Winston can commentthatforBarth‘ToknowtherealGodistoknowHimastheadversaryof evil.’23 Das Nichtige, then, is portrayed as ‘an alien factor’ (CD III/3, p. 289), ‘a real enemy’ and ‘adversary with whom no compromise is possible’ (CD III/3, pp. 301, 302). As antithetical and abhorrent to God, and thereby to ‘the totality of the created world’ (CD III/3, p. 302), therefore, it is inappropriate to speak of a causalitas mali in Deo. This conflict had its origin ‘before’ (understood logically rather than simply temporally) creation, with the separation of creation and nothingness, and preser- vation of the former ‘from being overthrown by the greater force of nothingness’ (CD III/3, p. 290). Creation is preserved from falling into ‘total peril’, or into suffering the ultimate consequences of being able ‘to overwhelm and destroy the creature’ (destroy absolutely, it must be added for comprehension) (CD III/3, p. 290). The de-creativeness of das Nichtige is always bounded, and therefore theo- dramaticallylimitedinitsscope,byGod’screativenessand,indeed,redemptivere- creativeness (IV/3 is a good exploration of the nature of the ongoing drama of the risen Christ with the many ways that das Nichtige is manifested in the world). A good grammar of creatureliness According to von Balthasar, the dying sinless Jesus proves thereby that sin is so much a part of existence that sinlessness cannot maintainitselfinit.Buthealsoprovesthatsinisnotanecessaryandinherent characteristicoflife.EvilisnotapartofGod,noryetapartofessentialman.24 Importantinthisconflictualaccount,then,isthattheologicallyGod’screating iswhollybeneficenttocreatures,andtheresultofthatcreatingiswhollygood(CD III/3, p. 302), something which Barth found so striking in Mozart’s witness to creation’s praising of its Creator (CD III/3, pp. 298–9). However radical evil may be, Ricoeur narrates, it cannot be as primordial [or original] as goodness’, and therein it becomes ‘scandalous at the same time it becomes historical’.25 23 A. Winston, ‘Barth’s Concept of the Nihil’, The Personalist 40 (1959), pp. 54–61 (p. 55); cf. CDIII/3, p.290. 24 H.U.vonBalthasar,Theo-Drama,VolumeI.Prolegomena,trans.GrahamHarrison(San Francisco: Ignatius Press,1988),pp.167–8. 25 P. Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), pp. 156, 203. Burns lists this citation with others that enable him to complain that ‘most [recent theological andphilosophicalattemptstounderstandthenatureofhumanevil]...still tend, if mutedly, cling to the notion of mankind’s essential moral goodness’. R.M. Burns,‘TheOriginsofHumanEvil’,ScottishJournalofTheology53(2000),pp.292– 315 (p. 292). If ‘essential’ here has reference to the eschatologically creative will of God (the theological reality of human being) then Burns demonstrates a lack of understanding of the nature of evil within a theology of grace. If it refers to the phenomenon of the human (the actuality of human beings) then he seriously misunderstands Ricoeur’s theological point. It is significant that when Ricoeur speaks (cid:223)BlackwellPublishersLtd2002 326 John C. McDowell ForBarth,anyaetiologyofdasNichtigerequiresa‘protection’ofthegrammar ofcreaturelydignity,byinsistingthatitcannotbesoughtin‘inthenon-divinityof the creature’ (CD III/3, p. 349).26 Possibly alluding to Nietzsche’s talk of Christianity as ‘life-denying’ and his own philosophy as ‘a yea-saying’, Barth speaks of his intention to be ‘loyal to the earth’ by being true to humanity’s permanent belonging-to-the-world and opposing both human conflicting with temporality’sfluxandanyattempttoescapetheproperlimitationsofcreaturehood of one’s life-span’s definite temporal allottedness, which is ended by death (CD III/2,p.6).Temporality isevenattributabletohumanity’seternallife(CDIII/2,p. 521). So Kerr regards Barth as ‘celebrating our finitude’.27 Createdness, that declared‘good’bytheCreator,islife’sproperframework:‘wearenotinanempty oralienplace’(CDIII/3,p.48).Andthosewordsaresignificantlywrittenatatime when Europe is facing rebuilding after the horrors of Auschwitz and the war’s ravaging of the continent. Thus, as created, humanity has no right (sin is closed off from human being), reason (what has been created is good), or freedom (freedom is the creature’s- freedom-for-God)tosin.Thisisthetheologicalsenseofthecomment,contextually unreadableasapaternalrenderingofGod-creaturerelations,‘Thecreatureisnotits own. It is the creature and possession of God’, and not ‘capable of sin’ (CD III/3, pp. 359, 356). Consequently, as explicated earlier in II/2, there is no divine fore- ordination or equipment of humanity to sin, but rather to blessedness and eternal life (CD II/2, pp. 170, 171; cf. III/1, pp. 263–4). The conflict, then, is not only with God but also with creatures. Sin is ‘detrimental’, and harmful to the extent of disturbing, injuring and destroying ‘the creature and its nature’ (CD III/3, p. 310). Barth speaks of it as a ‘denaturalizing’ ‘self-alienation’.28 Itisthisoppositional/conflictualperspectivethatfacilitatestheuseofnegative- language – das Nichtige (nothingness), negativity, a substance-less antithesis (CD III/3, p. 302), and ‘ontological impossibility’ (CD III/2, p. 146), unmo¨gliche Mo¨glichkeit (impossible possibility) (CD III/2; III/3, p. 351); ‘the absurd (irrational) possibility of the absurd (irrational)’ (CD III/3, p. 178), an ‘inherent contradiction’ (CD III/3, p. 351); a possibility passed over and rejected as a legitimate reality by God. In other words, as das Nichtige it has no autonomous being like that of creatures. Rather its quasi-reality is received in a relation of of the ‘anteriority of innocence’ he does so in the context of the Admaic myth of the Fall (see TheSymbolismof Evil,pt. IIch. 3; citation fromp. 251). 26 One needs to be careful, as, for instance, Allender is not with language of ‘The evil person’ lest it forget that even in sin human beings are elected creatures. See Dan B. Allender,‘TheMarkofEvil’,inLisaBarnesLampmanandMichelleD.Shattuck,eds., God and the Victim: Theological Reflections on Evil, Victimization, Justice, and Forgiveness (GrandRapids: Eerdmans, 1999),pp.36–60. 27 FergusKerr,ImmortalLongings:VersionsofTranscendingHumanity(London:SPCK, 1997),p.24; cf.pp. vii–viii, 23. 28 Barth, TheChristian Life,p. 213. (cid:223)BlackwellPublishersLtd2002 Barth on Nothingness 327 negation or privation of the ‘good’, a description approving of Augustine’s post- PlotinianMalumestprivatioboni(CDIII/3,p.318),andisthereforethenullitythat isonlyparasiticalon,andnotinanywayidentifiablewith,thegoodthatis‘reality’ (or ‘being’) (CD II/2, pp. 170–1).29 The gate-crasher Asthat to which God gives ‘an absolute and uncompromising No’ das Nichtige is the ‘uninvited’ enemy, an unwanted intruder into created life (CD III/3, pp. 292, 310). But, what is the nature of this ‘uninvitation’? According to Hick there are groundsforsuspectingthatBarth,inasense,madenothingnesslogicallynecessary for his scheme of creation and redemption.30 Barth, in his way of opposing any Manichaean style dualism, grounds das Nichtige in God’s activity of election and creation, albeitinthequalified sensethatGoddoesnotelect orcreate it(CDIII/3, pp.351–2).Moreover,inadiscussionofGen.1:2heappearstoequatedasNichtige with the chaos from which God’s creating was separated (CD III/3, p. 352).31 Hicktentativelyclaims thatBarthmaintains theOfelixculpainthesensethat evil ‘exists’ in order ‘to make possible the supreme good of redemption’.32 Barth does unwittingly appear to imply that sin is inevitable for creation, for instance, whenhedeclaresthat‘GodwillsevilonlybecauseHewillsnottokeeptoHimself the light of His glory but to let it shine outside Himself’ (CD II/2, p. 170). Thissuggeststhat,inaveryrealsense,then,theresponsibilityfordasNichtige lies with God. Fiddes, for example, argues that the notion of theopusalienumofGodcomesdownheavilyonthesideoftheopusofGod.It is too much ‘his own’ and not enough ‘most alien’ ... It is simply his own, though hapless, work.33 29 Rene´ Girard,citedbyWebster,Barth’sMoralTheology,p.76:‘theabsoluteneedthat demonshavetopossessalivingbeinginordertosurvive.Thedemonisnotcapableof existing apart from that possession.’ According to Augustine, while evil is not a substance it appears asa substance (DeMorbisManichaeorum, 2.5.7). 30 Hick, Evil andthe Godof Love,p. 138. 31 This, one must re-emphasize, is not Barth’s equation of das Nichtige with the Schattenseite,althoughRuetherfeelsthat‘thisfrontierhasawayofbecomingblurred’ inBarth’sexplication(Ruether,‘TheLeftHandofGod’,p.14).HickunderstandsBarth tobethinkingofwhathas‘traditionally’beencalledmetaphysicalevil,namelyfinitude, imperfection, impermanence, and the fact of having been created ex nihilo and being thus ever on the verge of collapsing back into non-existence. However, Barth views theseasnecessarylimitations andimperfections thatarenottobeaccountedevil(see, e.g., CDIII/3, p. 74onphysical death ‘asanatural limitation’). 32 Hick, Evil andthe Godof Love,p. 139. 33 P.S.Fiddes,TheCreative SufferingofGod(Oxford:ClarendonPress,1988),pp.218– 19.RodinpushesthisconflictfurtherintotheeternalityoftheGodhead‘whichisthen playedoutinthecreaturelysphere’.R.ScottRodin,EvilandTheodicyintheTheology of KarlBarth (NewYork: Peter Lang, 1997),pp. 89–90. (cid:223)BlackwellPublishersLtd2002 328 John C. McDowell To fully address this question one would need not only to explore Barth’s treatment of divine omniscience and its relation to creaturely agency, but also his dialectical talk of the nature of eternal temporality as a simultaneity (past, present and future are all ‘present’ to God) inclusive of a successiveness.34 At least it can berecognized,theologically,thatforBarthitiscreation,andnotevil,thatexistsas thepresuppositionof,orinordertomakepossible,redemption.Moreover,Barth’s theologydoesnot appear tobe a‘problem-oriented approach’ (i.e., postulating the incarnatehistoryasaresponsetosin),althoughthisstatementmustbequalifiedby noting that henever abstractly discussesthe questionofan incarnation in asinless worldsincecreationissinful,andthereforetheincarnationisalwaysplacedwithin thatcontextinamannerreminiscentofRev.13:8’slambslainfromthefoundation of the world (CD II/2, p. 122; IV/1, p. 36). So he speaks of the world’s reconciliation, resolved in eternity and fulfilled on Calvary (CD IV/2, p. 314). Hence, the Incarnate’s conflict with sinfulness cannot, without some copious qualification,merelybethetemporalplayingoutoftheexclusionofdasNichtigein creation. Itisvitaltonote,then,thatBarthdoesnotsuggestthatbecausedasNichtigeis that for which God, as Creator, is somehow responsible for bringing into its own ‘improperway’thatsinistherefore necessary,inanytheo-logicalsense(CDIII/3, p.351). In this discourse, and indeed perhaps more surprisingly given the typesof readings popular of Augustine’s (‘free will’!) ‘theodicy’, Barth moves to prevent the question ofthe unde malumbeing directed towards the creature. Sincannot be conceivedasapossibilityofhumanity’screatednaturesincethatwouldimplythat it isgrounded in the will ofGodasa means to the end of human nature (see CD III/3, p. 292). The is-ness of the inessential and insubstantial Inasomewhatcuriousstatement,however,Barthdeclaresthat‘It‘‘is’’becauseand assolongasGodisagainst it’(CDIII/3,p.353).IsHickright tosuggestthat das Nichtige is not nothingness but something, in other words, an aspect of the ‘good’ and not that which God has declared to be creation’s enemy? On the contrary, by giving das Nichtige its ‘is-ness’ as that which is rejected, the opus Dei alienum (understood only in the light of the opus Dei proprium) declares what it is that is not good, that is not part of his creative intention, and denies it the divine right of becoming something. It deprives it of the status of the ‘is-ness’,of‘autonomousexistence independentofGodorwilledbyHimlike that of His creature’, of creative intentionality (CD III/3, p. 353): ‘Only God and His creature really and properly are. But nothingness is neither God nor His creature’ (CD III/3, p. 349). 34 J.C. McDowell, Hope in Barth’s Eschatology: Interrogations and Transformations Beyond Tragedy(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000),ch. 5. (cid:223)BlackwellPublishersLtd2002