Scroll down to read previous entries. Or go here to read the first one, and work your way up.
Where do we begin in our critique of Barth’s ethics of life and death before God the Creator? Yoder raises important questions about whether or not Barth is entirely true to his method of disavowing casuistry, and whether Barth’s ethics are as seamlessly woven into Barth’s theology as he would like them to be.
Barth argues that, out of respect for God’s sovereignty, ethics should “never say never.” But what sort of sovereignty are we talking about here? I still remember the friendly argument that would arise between my two theology professors, George Stroup and Shirley Guthrie, whenever the topic of the Sovereignty of God came up (which was frequently--it being a Presbyterian seminary classroom!) Guthrie would say that Stroup, being rather at home in the theology of scholastic Calvinism, thought that, “God can do anything he damn well pleases.” But Guthrie, a student of Barth’s at Basel, possessed a doctrine of sovereignty that was less absolute, and speculative: God will always be true to God’s self as revealed in Jesus Christ. Or, as the Study Catechism interprets the first article of the Creed, and the Kingly office of Christ:
“God is a God of love, and… God's love is powerful beyond measure,”
and,
“(Jesus Christ) was the Lord who took the form of a servant; he perfected royal power in weakness. With no sword but the sword of righteousness, and no power but the power of love, Christ defeated sin, evil and death by reigning from the cross.”
Now it might seem strange to charge Karl Barth with not being Barthian enough, but in this case it does seem that his ethics are beholden to a less Christocentric understanding of sovereignty than we might have expected. Yoder puts it this way:
If God’s sovereignty is understood in the royal condescension of Christ rather than speculation about pure infinity, then crucifixion (the willing abandonment of the genuine values incarnate in the one just Man) and resurrection (the triumph of love over a predictable impossibility) are the modes of the exercise of sovereign authority. From here it would seem to follow in classical Christian thought that God does have power to make relevant and adequate in every situation that which he has already commanded, without being forced by certain situations to “take another line.” It is difficult to see how a denial of this would honor God more than the pacifist claim that, if we have once understood God in Jesus Christ, we have no room for predicting exceptions, or even for affirming the possibility of unpredictable exceptions.[1]
In other words, God demonstrates God’s sovereignty in the triumph of the suffering love poured out in Jesus Christ. Any unqualified No to violence grounded in that revelation upholds rather than diminishes God’s sovereignty.
Besides, Yoder argues, if God is sovereign in the “God can do anything he damn well pleases” sense, “there is no reason why the extreme case (Grenzfall) should be at the border (Grenze). There would be no reason why abortion should not at some time be commanded by God when no mother’s welfare is at stake…”[2] If such is the case with God’s sovereignty, then we are indeed lost in the woods, rather than looking down a more or less straight fence row.
Barth is careful to ground his ethics in his theology. Yet while Barth eschews absolutes in ethics, they abound in his more theological works. Yoder observes, “(Barth) does not clearly ask whether it is possible to make general statements about good behavior which could have the same validity in ethics as a statement about the divinity of Christ can have in theology.”[3] Maybe he should! After all, what’s good for the goose…
It’s not altogether clear that Barth escapes casuistry. While his categorical Nos followed by small qualifications are not intended to be understood as casuistic exceptions to the rule,[4] but rather zones where we might well hear God’s paradoxical command to respect life by taking it, it is nevertheless true that the exceptional case is a case.
Rather than rejecting casuistry, perhaps we simply need better casuistry. After all, casuistry seems to be precisely what Jesus is doing in the Sermon on the Mount. He promulgates a principle: “Be perfect, therefore, as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Like the sages of old, he brings forth examples from nature to both illustrate and justify his maxim: “God makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” What do you know? A “natural theology” of nonviolence! And he shows what this maxim might look like in practice, applying it in turn to the real life cases of slaves owned by abusive masters, debtors in the dock, and the hapless shepherd who’s impressed by a passing column of Roman soldiers. In each case, Jesus seems to be advocating a form of non-violent resistance that empowers and grants dignity to the oppressed, and affirms God’s free grace by not simply reversing the roles of oppressed and oppressor.[5]
The stumbling block for me when it comes to the Sermon is not the extremist ethic of pacifism, but the fact that Jesus isn’t talking to me here. In terms of my socio-economic power, I have a lot more in common with the slave-owner, the creditor, and the imperial forces than I do with those who are hearing Jesus’s advice. To the extent, then, that Barth makes us respect the specific context in which ethical maxims are uttered, I support his reservations about casuistry.
But what about me? What about people like me? Is there any word of the Lord for us? Are we permitted to overhear this conversation, and if so, what conclusions are we to draw about the vast amount of unjust wealth and power at the fingertips of first world folk like us? What of other conversations with folk like me in the Bible? Nathan’s confrontation of King David, John the Baptist’s advice to the soldiers, Jesus’s conversations with both Zaccheaus and the rich young ruler? I don’t think that we need an ethics that would help us evade the plain sense of these and other texts. I am opposed to “Jesuitical casuistry.” But we do seem to need thoughtful, creative, prayerful engagement with both the world of scripture and the world of everyday experience, in a way that liberates the Church for faithful hearing and obeying rather than doing the thinking for them. There may well be a role for casuistry in such a process. And I believe that such faithful hearing and obeying may well result in one Christian admonishing another with a sentence beginning with “Never…”
I think that Yoder is right to critique the ultra-Calvinist "God can do anything he damn well pleases" view of sovereignty, but I'm not sure that I find Yoder's alternative completely compelling either. Surely, I think we'd want to say, God's power is always aligned with God's goodness, but God's sovereignty is expressed both in Christ's "royal condescension" and in his resurrection, isn't it? In other words, God's power is sometimes expressed in its triumph over the forces of decay, death, and dissolution. I wonder if Yoder isn't trying to resolve the paradox of power and weakness too neatly by seeing God's power as a simple reversal of worldly ideas of power?
Posted by: Lee | 23 January 2008 at 07:28 AM
I'm sure the comment's post is no place to ask this... but what's the difference between "applied" casuistry and relativism? I concede my asking shows my lack of both ethical and philosophical sophistication... but they seem to be the same thing to my untrained ear. I'll take my Q&A off line as needed but though you might have a quick separator you could blast me with.
Posted by: skybison | 24 January 2008 at 11:48 PM