Sárospataki Füzetek 16. (2012)
2012 / 1. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Brinkman, Martien E.: Is There a Reciprocal Relation Between Anthropology and Christology?
is There a Reciprocal Relation...? well-documented interpretation of Barth makes clear that Barth indeed paradoxically — in spite of (or better: thanks to) his emphasis on the totally other-character of God — can be read as the twentieth century theologian who in his Christology and consequently in his anthropology stricter than any other theologian of his time related the divine to the humane. Barth’s anthropological insights have nothing to do with a phenomenological analysis of the basic conditions of human existence, but are predominantly based upon his interpretation of God’s revelation in Christ. In Christ the God-given potentialities of humankind are revealed. When Barth, therefore, speaks about the ‘humanity of God’, he applies not a ‘foreign’ or external idea to God, but he points to what belongs to the kernel of God’s revelation in Christ. So, speaking about the ‘humanity of God’ is tautological talk. The main characteristics of God’s humanity are the same as those of his divineness, but we cannot argue the other way around. His divineness is decisive for his humanity.24In spite of their connectedness we cannot declare God and human identical. Then we wouldn’t say anything new by referring to their relationship. The God-human relation presupposes always otherness. Therefore, we have to keep God and human distinct. Nonetheless, at the question of Augustine in his Confessions What is therefore my God? Or what can any man say when he speaks of thee?’(I, 4) and “What now do I love, when I love thee?’ (X, 6),25 we can— according to Barth—only give the answer that we in Christ have to seek the true human in God and the true God in a human person. Or to say the same in the paradoxical words of the Norwegian Lutheran theologian Jan-Olav Henriksen: “In Jesus, we realize who God is when and if God is a human.”26 Jesus as Son of God reveals what it is to be human and God is defined by his presence in the life and work of this human person. Unfortunately, however, Barth didn’t elaborate his Christological-anthropolo- gical insights in clear-cut anthropological concepts or ideas. One of the reasons of that omission might be his lack of involvement into an intense dialogue with other representatives of the humanities. That could have been a creative dialogue in which Barth might have been able to convince his dialogue partners of the adequate anthropological character of his Christological insights. But that didn’t hap(Ökumenische Theologie, Bd.9) (Zürich-Köln-Gütersloh: Benziger Verlag-Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn,1982), 332-347. 24 In four brochures, all of them published in the fifties, Barth elaborated his Christological-anthro- pological insights. Three of them are published in English as well. Cf. K.Barth, Humanismus (Theologische Studien 28) (Zürich: Zoliikon 1950), Engl, transi. K.Barth, God,here and now (Religious Perspectives 9) (London: Roudedge, 1964), 94-108; K.Barth, Die Wirklichkeit des neuen Menschen (Theologische Studien 27) (Zürich: Zoliikon 1950); K. Barth, Christus und Adam nach Röm.5 (Theologische Studien 35) (Zürich: Zoliikon 1952), Engl, transi K. Barth, Christ and Adam: Man and Humanity in Romans 5 (London: Oliver & Boyd, 1956) and K.Barth, Die Menschlichkeit Gottes (Theologische Studien 48) (Zürich: Zoliikon 1956), Engl, transl. K.Barth, The Humanity of God (Richmond: John Knox Press, 1960), 35-65. 25 Augustine, Confessions (transl. W. Watts) (Cambridge MA - London: Harvard University Press - Heinemann, 1968 and 1970), Vol. I, 9 and Vol. II, 87. 26 J.-O. Henriksen, Desire, Gift, and Recognition: Christology and Postmodern Philosophy (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009, 208 and 333 where Henriksen paraphrases his own words as following: “As the Son of God, Jesus is what God is like when God is a human”. 2012/1 SÁROSPATAKI FÜZETEK 23
