Letter from the Karl Barth-Archives
No. 9, 10th December 2007
Introduction
In early December, the publication of volume 44 of the Karl Barth-Gesamtausgabe was released. It contains the 31 sermons which Barth held in Safenwil before he joined the faculty at the University of Göttingen. With this volume, every sermon that Barth preached from 1913 until 1967 is now available in the Gesamtausgabe. Our many thanks go to Dr. Robert J. Sherman of Bangor Theological Seminary in Maine (USA) for his helpful remarks on Barth's sermons, and the translation of one of them -- "The Great 'However'", which Barth preached as his inaugural sermon at Göttingen in February 1921. On this 10th of December, 2007, we are delighted to greet all the Friends of the Karl Barth Archives with such a text, and we wish you all a merry and blessed Christmas, full of faith, confidence, and hope for the New Year in 2008.
Complete Letter No.9: PDF
- Left: Vicarage in Safenwil with the Church in the Background; Right Karl Barth at Work
Some Thoughts on the Publication of Barth's 1921 Sermons and a new Translation of his Sermon on Proverbs 16:2
Robert J. Sherman
Bangor Theological Seminary
Karl Barth was first of all a preacher, one whose call was to proclaim the good news of God in Jesus Christ. This may seem an inflated claim for one who spent so many decades as a professor of theology in Germany and Switzerland. And yet it is also clear that he intended his theological labors primarily to serve the Church in its mission-and if this frequently meant those labors clashed with the predominant assumptions and ideals of the Academy, so be it. One may also characterize Barth's theological endeavors in another way: To say one understands his work if one has only read his Church Dogmatics is to understand him only in part-or even to misunderstand him. Just as a true sense of Calvin's theology only emerges when one considers both his many commentaries and his Institutes, so, too, a true picture of Barth's theology only emerges when one considers both his sermons and his Dogmatics. It is not far-fetched to say that the former prompted the latter, and the latter were largely intended to serve the former. His theology was never an end in itself; rather, it was always done in service to proclaiming the Word of God.
The Great "However" [Das grosse "Aber"]
Proverbs 16:2
Each man regards his own ways as pure; however the Lord weigheth the spirits.2
Göttingen, Sunday, the 27th of February, 19213
1. "However" says the wisdom of the Bible. Whoever has once heard and understood it, nothing else surpasses this far-reaching, all-encompassing, momentous, biblical "however." And yet we are never finished with it, with hearing it and understanding it. One could divide the readers of the Bible between those who notice something of this "however" and those who don't notice it at all. Not all of the learned belong to those who take note, but neither do the unlearned. We all belong at times to those who take note and at times to those who do not. "However" means that there is still something being overlooked and forgotten, that there is still something else to be considered, that there is another new possibility at hand. "However" means that all our thinking and speaking, seeing and acting stands at a crossroad.