Theological Existence To-Day!

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Karl Barth. Theological Existence To-Day!

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THEOLOGICAL EXISTENCE TO-DAY!

(A Plea for Theological Freedom)

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When the political movement of this year had already passed beyond the first decisive steps of its triumph, there was taken up from different quarters at once, the cry that the German Evangelical Church must now proceed to a far-reaching new-ordering of its external relationships. Corresponding advances have been made which were accompanied by a varied taking part by theologians and Church members in speeches and counter-speeches. The initiative and leading in this new ordering, judging from what has happened to-day, was taken out of the Church’s control. In order to discuss and analyse the situation now arisen, it is necessary to raise the question: “How did those outcries for reform of the Church comport with legitimacy, particularly at that time?”

This statement may be ventured, that even a reform of the Church, chiefly affecting its external aspect, ought to spring from the internal requirement of the Church’s life itself: it ought to issue from obedience to the Word of God, or else it is no reform of the Church. In any case, we shall have to admit, that all of us who have any share in the life of the Church, were well aware of the most serious need for improving so many Church relationships, and aware too, of the projects in the air everywhere from of old and from recent times. But still, at the commencement of this remarkable year we had no inkling of such an acute necessity for proceeding to action. That is to say, on the one hand, aware of the existence of problems and requirements of Church life which had been so burning, and on the other hand, aware of the existence on the spot of the deep insights, and of the great forces, which would seem to have made this undertaking now to be our own responsibility, and one full of hope. At that time, at any rate, we did not think of or know of any command to act in this way issuing as God’s Word to us. If a change has come over what existed in the early part of the year, and since, how did it happen?

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