Karl Barth. Paul S. Chung
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Название: Karl Barth

Автор: Paul S. Chung

Издательство: Ingram

Жанр: Религия: прочее

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isbn: 9781498270311

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СКАЧАТЬ world in the Bible. The Bible is a witness to the new world in which Barth finds the being of God extra nos and speaks of the transcendence of God in a theologically positive way. Whoever wants to interpret the Bible must speak of the new world in it. Barth materializes concepts such as the absolute and the new from the standpoint of God in a biblical-theological manner. In the biblical discourse on the new world, Barth defines the Jenseits of the existing society as knowledge of God. The Bible qualifies a contrast between the human/relative and the absolute/divine as a verifiable position. The standpoint of God, which is to be shown in the Bible, is not the image of the individual-relative standpoint of humans, but the example toward which an explicit and univocal action of human being must orient itself.

      Given that Barth understood his lecture activity in connection with his parish work, we notice that Barth arranged the manuscript of a funeral sermon on Safenwil worker Arnold Hunzinker under his “Socialist Speeches.” In other words, for Barth, party and parish work belong together. His funeral sermon was published in the New Free Aargauer (on Monday, September 3, 1917), which was the official publication organ of the Aargau Social Democratic Party and of the cartel of workers’ unions. This sermon interpreted the socialist understanding of death and resurrection in the workers’ particular struggle against capitalism, in light of Barth’s theological subject matter. Here Barth accepted and applied the interpretation without contradiction.

      The significance of Blumhardt and Kutter for Thurneysen lay in their reappropriating the voice of socialism for the repentance and renewal of the church. In other words, against popular misunderstanding they did not fall into a politicization of the church through socialism, or conversely into an idealization of socialism through Christianity. From this standpoint we see that Barth and Thurneysen were attesting to an organic connection between the Bible and political events. The new world in the Bible has material relevance to what happens politically in our world. Barth tried to find in the Bible actual political orientation toward human action in the revolutionary situation of 1918. The connection between the Bible and the newspaper occupies fundamental hermeneutical significance for his exegesis as well as for his understanding of the Word of God. Reading of all sorts of world literatures and, above all, the newspaper, was urgently recommended for understanding Barth’s Romans commentary.

      In the face of the daily newspaper, Romans needed to be understood in a new light. This competence came out of the conversion to the Bible, from inside out, namely, from its own subject matter. Barth’s theology of the Bible explicitly retains this social, political interest instead of withdrawing it from biblical interpretation. For Barth, biblical interpretation has to do with reflection on the relation between God and the Bible and social circumstances. The blueprint of theology should be no other than the preparation for a political sermon and social praxis. As Barth further states,