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Many evangelicals, including those supposedly opposed to the emerging church movement might assume that Karl Barth was reliable as a guide to spiritual truth. They may read some of his works and agree with him prima facie as he speaks of God’s revelation in Christ, the redemption/reconciliation through Christ, etc. They may even take Barth to represent orthodox biblical Christianity believing he defends Christ’s “literal” resurrection according to the Scriptures. But as Cornelius Van Til noted, “The fact is, however, that Barth does not submit himself to Scripture as a direct revelation of God.”

Van Til continues, “And, likewise, he does not think of Jesus Christ as a direct revelation of God. He is still devoted to his basic principle that, while revelation is historical, history is not revelational. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is therefore not that on which he relies for an answer to subjectivism; to do so would for Barth be a denial of one of his most basic principles.”

“To some readers, this may seem confusing. Either Barth believes, or he doesn’t believe! But the matter is not so simple. It is true that Barth seeks a resurrection in space, and time, and that he seeks the Christ and his resurrection in Scripture. But he finds the resurrection in a Scripture which he asserts to be ‘full of obscurities and indissoluble contradictions.’ He finds the resurrection to be an actual event in history even though in all history God is said to be wholly hidden as well as wholly revealed. When, in opposition to Bultmann, Barth seeks for an actual Easter-Event from which faith must proceed, he is not for one moment proposing to find this where evangelical theology finds it. Why was it necessary, Barth asks, to attest the concrete objectivity of the Easter narratives? He answers very plainly: ‘Certainly not in order to explain the resurrection of Jesus Christ as a historically indisputable fact.’ The ‘incontrovertible fact’ which led to the resurrection faith is primarily an event in Geschichte rather than in Historie, in this ‘real’ history as against ordinary history. The resurrection may, perhaps, best be said to have taken place in Prae-historie. Usually, Barth speaks of Geschichte.”

“Here we deal with a peculiar sort of history. When we turn from the passion narratives in the Gospels to the resurrection accounts Barth says we sense that we are ‘led into a historical sphere of a different kind.’ ‘The death of Christ can certainly be thought of as history in the modern sense, but not the resurrection.’ The resurrection happens ‘without our being able to ascribe a ‘historical’ character to it.’ When we deal with the resurrection, we do not deal with something that happened in the past, for, says Barth, if we did we would be back in historical relativism. This is indeed a strange dilemma: to escape subjectivism, we must avoid an objective resurrection! To escape relativism in history, we must avoid history!”

This is a prime example of the nonsensical irrationality Barth smuggled into contemporary Christianity. It would not merit much attention from biblical Christians had it not become so widespread in its influence among those that profess faith in Christ. The intellectual investment in Barthianism and the endorsement from seminaries, universities, churches, pastors, and laypeople has given a false perception that Barth’s interpretation of Christianity is indeed consistent with the Christianity revealed in the Scriptures.

In order to do Barth justice, we must either accept his theology as a whole or reject it as a whole, for that is what he wanted. It is therefore a mistake of ignorance for one to say that on some doctrines Barth is essentially sound and on others unsound.  What Barth wanted the followers of the Reformation to do is learn to reinterpret the creeds of Christianity – Christologically. This may sound like a good and noble enterprise at first, that is, until one learns that “Christologically” must be in his sense of the term, and not the sense in which Scripture teaches.

Van Til pointed out, “If, as followers of the Reformers, we are now to become followers of Barth then we may go forth to tell all men everywhere, to the ends of the earth, not that they must repent and believe that Jesus, the Son of God and son of man died and rose again on certain calendar days in Jerusalem, but that they are already and have from eternity been in Christ. Their very manhood implies their reconciliation with God in Christ. If we accept the gospel as Karl Barth interprets it then we must reject the gospel as the Reformers interpret it.”

The Bible declares the gospel to be that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised from the dead on the third day, in accordance with the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:3-5). Scripture does not testify to the Geschichte/Historie distinction proposed by Barth. In fact, Barth is refuted with ease by the teaching of Scripture that places the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus within the same history that you and I at this moment are existing in, and which we too will die in! Carl F. H. Henry states, “Christian revelation is nullified unless the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ belong to the same history that includes the death of Julius Caesar and of Adolf Hitler. The Christian must either believe that the great redemptive events belong to the realm of history or forfeit his faith.”

If Henry is right, which I contend he is, then Barthians must, on the basis of the truth revealed in Scripture, forfeit their faith! By following Barth and accepting the false distinction of “history” and “superhistory,” Barthian theological liberals of all stripes (including emergents and proBarthian evangelicals) cannot have the assurance from the testimony of God’s own Word, and their “faith is in vain!”

14 And if Christ has not been raised (in general space/time history), then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ (in general space/time history), whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised (in general space/time history), your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. (1 Cor. 15:14-19 ESV)

As you celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ the Lord and all its salvific implications, you must acknowledge that the events of His life, death, burial, and resurrection actually happened in general space/time history. If there was a large enough calendar, we would be able to flip the pages in reverse and actually reach the date when He was raised from the dead for our justification (Rom. 4:25). If you deny this and accept Barth, you are caught only playing games and as Paul says, “have hope only in this life.”

Do not trust Karl Barth’s interpretation of Christianity. Trust in the Christ of history as your only hope of heaven, just as the Scriptures claim!

Quotes from Van Til – Van Til, C. (1962). Christianity and Barthianism. The Presbyterian and ReformedPublishing Company: Philadelphia.

Quotes from Carl F. H. Henry – Henry, C. F. H. (1999). God, revelation, and authority (2:289). Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.