International Journal of Systematic Theology Volume 10 Number 1 January 2008 doi:10.1111/j.1468-2400.2007.00332.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: Karl Barth and the Historicization of Gods Being
ADAM EITEL*

Abstract: In the excurses of Karl Barths Church Dogmatics IV/1, Barth invests the resurrection with greater ontological signicance than is typically acknowledged in contemporary accounts of his mature theology. In this article, I systematically develop the numerous statements in CD IV/1 in which Barth conceptualizes the resurrection as the historical fulllment of Gods eternal being. Subsequently, I identify the similitude between Barths theology of the resurrection and Hegels as presented in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. The article closes by suggesting that the similitude between Barths view and Hegels may include points of material correspondence.

Even a cursory reading of Barths Doctrine of Reconciliation reveals his careful attention to the resurrections concrete ontological reality.1 But as we shall see in this article, several passages in these volumes indicate a more intricately developed understanding of the resurrections ontological signicance than is typically acknowledged in contemporary Barth studies.2 To be sure, the pattern of thought under consideration sits in the periphery of Barths theology of the resurrection. My hope, however, is that the outskirts of Barths thought might throw more light on its center.

* Princeton Theological Seminary, 64 Mercer Street, Princeton, NJ 08542-0803, USA. 1 Thomas F. Torrance, Space, Time, and Resurrection (Edinburgh: Handsel Press, 1976), pp. xxi. Here, Torrance recalls some of Barths most often remembered nal words: Wohlverstanden, leibliche Auferstehung Mark well, bodily resurrection. Cf. Eberhard Jngel, Karl Barth: A Theological Legacy, trans. Paul E. Garrett (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986), p. 50. 2 For the most recent, penetrating, and undoubtedly comprehensive treatment of Barths doctrine of the resurrection, see R. Dale Dawson, The Resurrection in Karl Barth (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007).
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My purpose in this article is twofold: I will argue that (1) the resurrection of Jesus Christ was the historicization of Gods eternal being and that (2) the resources for marshaling my claim are found in the theology of Karl Barth. Therefore, I will allow Barths theology to range the discussion with the intention that my latter argument will be implicitly contained in the former. I will begin by outlining several pertinent features of Barths doctrines of the resurrection and the Trinity. Next, I will synthesize my observations from both doctrines in order to show in what sense Jesus Christs resurrection was the historicization that is, the historical fulllment of Gods eternal being. As we shall see, my thesis occasions at least one signicant question to which I will respond, in turn, by employing Barths doctrine of election. Finally, I will consider the implications of Barths view of the resurrection, especially in respect to Barths relationship to the philosophical theology of G.W.F. Hegel.3

It should be noted that statements can be found in CD II/1 (and even occasionally later) which could, in isolation from his theological development, be made to evince Barths afrmation of the perfection of the immanent Trinity in very classical terms (e.g. . . . the perfections of God in their multiplicity and variety do not arise from His relations to the world, but are those of His own being as He who loves in freedom in Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics vol. II, The Doctrine of God, pt 1, trans. T.H.L. Parker et al. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1957), p. 332). For one of the best examples of an interpretation that makes ample use of such texts, see George Hunsinger, Disruptive Grace: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004). Also see Paul D. Molnar, The Trinity, Election and Gods Ontological Freedom: A Response to Kevin W. Hector, International Journal of Systematic Theology 8 (2006), pp. 294306; Edwin Chr. van Driel, Karl Barth on the Eternal Existence of Jesus Christ, Scottish Journal of Theology 60 (2007), pp. 4561. The following argument, however, presupposes the success of Bruce McCormacks genetic-historical interpretation of Barths theological development. This paradigm holds that a new phase in Barths thinking was inaugurated by his revision of the doctrine of election in CD II/2. Therein, Barth creates the material conditions for envisaging Jesus Christ (rather than the eternal Logos) as the subject of election. At the heart of this development lies a certain historicization of the divine being. To be sure, the presence of a historicizing tendency in Barths theology was neither immediately obvious nor entirely consistent; it was not until CD IV/1 that Barth could nally envisage his doctrine of God in terms of the actualistic ontology that had been made axial to his theology by the material decisions of CD II/2. See Bruce L. McCormack, Divine Impassibility or Simply Divine Constancy? Implications of Karl Barths Later Christology for Debates over Impassibility, in J. Keating and T.J. White, eds., Divine Impassibility and the Mystery of Human Suffering (forthcoming); Bruce L. McCormack, Seek God Where He May Be Found: A Response to Edwin Chr. Van Driel, Scottish Journal of Theology 60 (2007), pp. 6279; Barths grundstzlicher Chalkedonismus?, Zeitschrift fr dialektische Theologie 18 (2002), pp. 13873; Karl Barths Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development, 19091936 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). Also, for the most recent and thorough treatment of Barths actualistic ontology and its attendant issues, see Paul T. Nimmo, Being in Action: The Theological Shape of Barths Ethical Vision (London and New York: T. & T. Clark International, 2007), pp. 412.

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The resurrection of Jesus Christ

All of Jesus life was indeed his life. So although Jesus Christ was dead and buried, the resurrection was not an act of divine intervention in which he was uninvolved. As Barth points out, the suggestion that the coming alive of a dead man would be a contradictio in adiecto as a human work presupposes that we are speaking in the sphere of human activity. And as Barth reminds us, the sphere of human activity is a long way off from speaking of [Jesus Christ who is] God.4 As an actual event in Jesus life, the resurrection took place by and in and to Jesus Christ.5 This, too, was his act. However, Barth nds at least one signicant distinction between Jesus resurrection and all other events in his life. In typically dialectical fashion, Barth also maintains that although the resurrection was an actual event in Jesus life, it was an event that happened to him. The resurrection was the act of the Father alone: the Subject of the resurrection is not simply qe, according to the regular usage but r.6 As a participant in this act of God, the Son of God was active only in qe pat utter passivity: The facts themselves tell us decisively that the event of Easter has to be understood primarily as the raising which happens to Jesus Christ, and only secondarily and (actively) on that basis as His resurrection. For in the New Testament it is everywhere described as an act of divine grace which follows the crucixion but which is quite free.7 Jesus Christ could not have raised himself from the dead; for, as Barth points out, the resurrection brought forth Jesus Christ from His being in death, that is, His nonbeing as the One who was crucied, dead, buried and destroyed, as the One who had been and had ceased to be.8 As the One who had truly died, Jesus Christ did not and in fact could not take his new life; rather, it was given to Him.9 As Barth understands it, the Fathers act of raising Jesus Christ from the dead was not necessary. However, that Barth nds the resurrection unnecessary does not at all mean he thinks it superuous or unimportant. For Barth, the resurrection was unnecessary in at least two ways. First, the resurrection was not essential to the atonement. On the basis of his exegesis of scripture, Barth concludes that the resurrection was an actual event, distinct from the incarnation and crucixion; it was

4 5 6 7 8 9

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. IV, The Doctrine of Reconciliation, pt 1, trans. G.W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1957), p. 301. CD IV/1, p. 298. CD IV/1, p. 303. CD IV/1, p. 303. CD IV/1, p. 305. CD IV/1, p. 303. Barth construes Jesus resurrection as an event that happened to Him because to do otherwise to understand Jesus as the primary acting subject in this event necessarily involves a docetic view of death.
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a a new act of God which is clearly marked off from the rst.10 And since the reconciliation of the world was accomplished by Jesus obedient life and death, the resurrection did not, in the strictest sense, carry an objective soteriological function. Therefore, Barth writes: Was this [resurrection] necessary? Certainly not in the sense that at Golgotha everything had not taken place which had to take place for the reconciliation of the world with God, that the representation and sacrice of Jesus Christ in His death were not wholly sufcient . . . 11 But just because the resurrection was unnecessary for the reconciliation of the world does not mean that it was merely an arbitrary spectacle. The resurrection, like the atonement, was also a sovereign act of Gods free grace: For in the New Testament it is everywhere described as an act of divine grace which follows the crucixion but which is quite free.12 Second, the resurrection was unnecessary in the sense that it was not grounded in the natural rhythm of world-occurrence. Although the resurrection happened in the world, it had no antecedent cause. The resurrection took place quite apart from any logical connection to the pragmatic context of human decisions.13 It was not the result of Jesus death.14 Having no causal ground in the sphere of natural or human activity, the resurrection happened as a sovereign act of God, and only in this way.15 For this reason, Barth frequently compares Jesus resurrection to Gods creation of the world. Barth sees in Jesus resurrection an exact correspondence with what He did as Creator when He separated light from darkness and elected the creature to being.16 For: , rein) the dead, to give life (zwopoie n) to the dead, is like the To raise ( ge creative summoning into being of non-being, a matter wholly and exclusively for God alone, quite outside the sphere of any possible co-operating factors (Heb. 11:19; 2 Cor. 1:9; Rom 4:17).17

10 CD IV/1, p. 297. A qualication is in order here. Although Barth presents the resurrection as separate from the atonement, in typical dialectical fashion he later insists that the cross and the resurrection constitute one work. See CD IV/1, pp. 34257. 11 CD IV/1, p. 307. The soteriological import of the resurrection is subjective in so far as it makes possible believers appropriation of the reality of the cross. On the importance of this aspect of Barths doctrine of resurrection, see Dawson, The Resurrection in Karl Barth, pp. 17, 83113. 12 CD IV/1, p. 303. 13 CD IV/1, p. 300. 14 CD IV/1, p. 304. 15 CD IV/1, p. 304. 16 CD IV/1, p. 349. 17 CD IV/1, p. 301.
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For Barth, Gods originative act as Creator was no brute display of divine potency but an utterly free and gracious act. The same is true of the resurrection: Jesus return from the grave was an utterly free act of divine grace.18 In sum, Barth understands Jesus Christs resurrection from the dead as the event in which God the Father acted unnecessarily and graciously. Jesus Christ participated in the Fathers act as the Son of God, but only in utter passivity. In the resurrection, the Son of God acted as the One who takes and receives . . . [as] the recipient of a gift.19 It is not yet obvious how Jesus Christs resurrection was the historicization of Gods eternal being. To build my case, we must now turn to Barths doctrine of the Trinity.

The doctrine of the Trinity

When Barth endeavors to specify Gods divine life, he does so under the rejection of all speculative modes of reasoning. Over and against all abstract notions of divinity, Barth insists that only by keeping strictly to Gods self-revelation in Jesus Christ (who is the God-human in divinehuman unity) can one learn who God is in Godself: No general idea of Godhead developed abstractly from such concepts must be allowed to intrude . . . [rather the denition of] Godhead is something which . . . we must always learn from Jesus Christ. He denes those concepts: they do not dene Him. When we start with the fact that He is very God we are forced to keep strictly to Him in relation to what we mean by true Godhead.20 For Barth, God is who He is in His works.21 We encounter Gods essence what God is as God . . . where God deals with us as Lord and Savior.22 We encounter the sphere of his action and working as it is revealed to us in the witness of scripture.23 Therefore, to know God as God we need not, and in fact must not, leave this sphere in which we encounter Gods works. In other words, by attending to Gods works as revealed in holy scripture we encounter Gods very being because in Himself He is not another than He is in His works.24

18 CD IV/1, p. 301. 19 CD IV/1, p. 304. Barth offers a more nuanced account of Jesus active passivity in the parallel subsections, 54.4 and 59.4. In The Direction of the Son (IV/2, 54.4), Barth incorporates the idea of Jesus as the true humans obedient co-operation into the transitional resurrection history. In The Promise of the Spirit (IV/3, 59.4), Barth emphasizes Jesus revelatory action as the God-human. 20 CD IV/1, p. 129. 21 CD II/1, p. 260. 22 CD II/1, p. 260. 23 CD II/1, p. 260. 24 CD II/1, p. 260.
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Combining the premise that God reveals Godself in Gods works with an insistence that one encounters Gods works only in holy scripture leads to a second premise, that God is God in three ways of being Father, Son and Holy Spirit: The statement that God is One in three ways of being, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, means, therefore, that the one God, i.e. the one Lord, the one personal God, is what He is not just in one mode but we appeal in support simply to the result of our analysis of the biblical concept of revelation in the mode of the Father, in the mode of the Son, and in the mode of the Holy Ghost.25 In Gods self-revelation as witnessed to in holy scripture God reveals Godself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And since God in se is not another than God is in Gods works, God does not just appear to be triune. This is who God is really; God is God in the modes of Gods being Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This suggests that Gods being is self-related being that Gods being is relationally structured.26 To say as much means that God reveals Gods being as an activity. More precisely, God reveals Godself as the One who is always in the act of relating to Godself in Gods threefold repetition of being. Barth maintains that we cannot transcend the language of activity when referring to Gods being. Any attempt to transcend the language of activity in reference to God would amount to destructively speculative theology.27 Therefore, when dealing with the being of God . . . the word event or act is nal and cannot be surpassed and compromised.28 By employing the language of activity Barth therefore refers directly to Gods very being. In other words, Gods being is a being-in-act: The whole being and life of God is an activity, both in eternity and in worldly time, both in Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and in His relation to man and all creation . . . [Gods being] . . . is the eternal activity in which He is both in Himself and in the history of His acts in the world created by Him.29 Elsewhere, but with a different emphasis, Barth writes: To its very deepest depths Gods Godhead consists in the fact that it is an event not any event, not events in general, but the event of His action, in which we have a share in Gods revelation.30

25 26

27 28 29 30

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. I, The Doctrine of the Word of God, pt 1, trans. G.T. Thomson (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1936), p. 359. CD II/1, p. 297. Jngel uses the phrase relationally structured to make a similar point in his book, Gods Being is in Becoming. I am indebted to him for this phrase. Eberhard Jngel, Gods Being is in Becoming, trans. John Webster (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2001), p. 123. CD II/1, p. 263. Also see George Hunsinger, How To Read Karl Barth: The Shape of His Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 61, 25771. CD II/1, p. 263. CD IV/1, pp. 78. CD II/1, p. 263.

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Note especially Barths emphasis that when speaking of Gods being-in-act we are not referring to events in general but rather to the event of His action.31 Here especially Barth hastens to denounce all intrusions of abstraction; by event we cannot posit a general notion of event or act to be subsequently ascribed to Gods being. Rather, when we know God as event, act and life, we have to admit that generally . . . we do not know what this is.32 Barth insists that we understand Gods being as event, act, and life in His own way.33 By this, Barth underscores at least two points. First, by insisting that Gods act of being is his act, Barth means that Gods being is self-determined being; it is His own conscious, willed, and executed decision.34 To be sure, Gods self-determination of Gods being is eternal: there is no moment in the ways of God which is over and above this act and decision. Gods eternality should not be conated with either intrinsic or extrinsic necessity; Gods being is neither the mechanical outcome of a process of rationality, nor an event occurring through external causes.35 What more, however, can be said about how Gods being-in-act is such in Gods own way? We have already seen that the act in which God has Gods whole being and life is in Gods self-relating as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It remains for us now to specify how Barth explains Gods act of self-relating. Barth further denes Gods being-in-act by taking up the so-called doctrine of relations: In the . . . act in which God is God there is rst a pure origin and then two different issues, the rst of which is to be attributed solely to the origin and the second and different one to both the origin and also the last issue. According to Scripture God is manifest and is God in the very mode or way that He is in those relations to Himself. He brings forth Himself and in two distinctive ways He is brought forth by Himself. He possesses Himself as Father, i.e., pure Giver, as Son, i.e., Receiver and Giver, and as Spirit, i.e. pure Receiver . . . This is the unique divine trinity in the unique divine unity.36 In this formula Barth has simply interpreted the self-related being of the triune God as the Father and Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit which proceeds from both the Father and the Son. The specicity of Gods being-in-act consists in Gods self-relating as the Father who eternally gives to the Son the One who eternally receives from the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit. In summary, God reveals Godself in Gods works as being-in-act. God is being-in-act, not as generic actus purus, but in the particular act of self-relating as

31 32 33 34 35 36

CD II/1, p. 263. CD II/1, p. 263. CD II/1, p. 264. CD II/1, p. 271. CD II/1, p. 271. CD I/1, p. 365.
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Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In Gods self-revelation, God shows Godself as the One who is free from necessity; God brings forth Gods being in freedom. In Gods divine freedom, God brings forth Godself as the Father who relates to the Son in the unity of the Spirit.

Resurrection as the historicization of Gods being

In this section, I will recollect and synthesize my preceding observations from Barths doctrines of the resurrection and the Trinity. We will rst see in what sense Jesus entire life generally corresponds to Gods triune being-in-act. Subsequently and within this context, I will focus more narrowly on the correspondence between the resurrection of Jesus Christ and Gods eternal being. Barth nds in the witness of scripture that the determinative characteristic of Jesus Christs life was his relationship to the Father (Jn 5:19) in which the Father relates to the Son and vice versa. The Fathers act of relating to the incarnate Son is characterized by love. The Father loves the Son (Mt. 11:27; Jn 3:35; 15:9); in the Fathers love for the Son, he grants him life: For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself (Jn 5:26). This life-giving love that characterizes the Fathers relationship to the Son is such that all that the Father has he gives to the Son (Jn 16:15). Therefore, the Father gives glory to the Son (Jn 8:54). He has set his seal upon him (Jn 6:27). Because God in se is not another than God is in Gods works, the Fathers act of relating to Jesus Christ in time must comport with Gods eternal act of being. As we have seen in Barths doctrine of the Trinity, the Father possesses himself as pure Giver who issues the Son in the unity of the Spirit.37 As eternally pure Giver, God the Father loves and gives all that he has to Jesus Christ the Son of God because the Father is this One in Godself. As the One who eternally issues the Son, the Father gives life and glory to the Son in time because he is the One who has always done so in eternity. The Father does all of this precisely because this is the Fathers eternal act of being.38 For Barth, the entire sweep of Jesus Christs earthly existence was grounded in this eternal intra-triune FatherSon relationship. Therefore, all of Jesus life was the revelation of Gods eternal act of being. Since all of Jesus Christs life was grounded in the eternal intra-triune FatherSon relationship, the resurrection was no less encompassed by the Fathers eternal act of relating to the incarnate Son of God. On this basis, Barth declares that in the resurrection of Jesus Christ we have to do with a movement and action which took place not merely in human history but rst and foremost in God Himself, a movement and action in which Jesus Christ as the Son of God . . . [is] a pure object and recipient of God [the Fathers] . . . free and pure grace which
37 CD I/1, p. 365. 38 CD I/1, p. 275.
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Adam Eitel as such can only be received, and the historical fullment of which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.39

Above, Barth points to a striking correspondence between the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the eternal act of Gods being: the resurrection . . . took place . . . not merely in human history but rst and foremost in God himself.40 This activity in Godself is the eternal relationship of the Father to the Son characterized by the Fathers eternal act of giving free and pure grace to the Son. Given the continuity between the intra-triune FatherSon relationship and Jesus Christs resurrection from the dead, Barth concludes that the former nds its historical fullment in the latter. In sum, the Fathers eternal intra-triune graciousness towards the Son is brought to historical fullment . . . [in] the resurrection of Jesus Christ.41 To clarify the correspondence between the resurrection and Gods being we may recall our previous observations concerning Barths doctrines of the resurrection and the Trinity. The correspondence is threefold. First, their correspondence is grounded in the fact that just as in Gods eternal triune being the Father freely issues the Son, so too in time has the Father freely willed to beget him and to cause him to be born again from the dead.42 Second, just as in Godself the eternal Son is the eternally passive recipient of the eternal Fathers free grace, so too was Jesus Christ the entirely passive recipient of the Fathers free and gracious act of raising him from the dead. Therefore, Barth observed that it was not simply as man [in time], but even as the Son of God [in Gods eternal being] that the Son of God . . . is here [in the resurrection] simply the One who takes and receives, the recipient of a gift.43 Third, just as God is free from necessity in determining Gods own being, so too was Gods act of raising Jesus Christ from the dead a matter of Gods sovereign choice. On the basis of the parallel between Gods act of being and Christs resurrection, Barth concludes: In the work of the reconciliation of the world with God the inward divine relationship between the One who rules [the Father] and the One who obeys in humility [the Son] is identical with the very different relationship between God and one of his creatures, a man [Jesus Christ].44 But for Barth, the correspondence between these two events is more than just formal; the symmetry of their contours is no mere point of dogmatic artistry. As Barth sees it, the correspondence between Gods intra-triune FatherSon relationship and the resurrection of Jesus Christ is also efcient and material. It is efcient because in both instances God alone is the subject of the event; material because in both instances God is also the object. Just as God alone is the subject of Gods
39 40 41 42 43 44 CD IV/1, p. 304. CD IV/1, p. 304. CD IV/1, p. 304. CD IV/1, p. 307. CD IV/1, p. 304. CD IV/1, p. 203.
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intra-triune self-determination to be God as the Father who graciously gives life to the Son in the unity of the Spirit, so also God alone determined to give life to the dead and buried Jesus. Similarly, just as God is the object of Gods self-determination to be triune, so also was God the object of Gods decision to raise Jesus Christ (who is the Logos as human) from the grave. If the preceding observations are correct, then Gods eternal triune act of being and Christs resurrection from the dead are not peculiar or separate acts. Rather, Christs resurrection was the historical continuation of Gods eternal being-in-act. In other words, when God gave Godself to history in this way, nothing new took place in Godself; in fact, God revealed Godself as the One God has always been. As Barth has it, God simply activates and reveals Himself ad extra, in the world. He is in and for the world what He is in and for Himself. He is in time what He is in eternity (and what He can be also in time because of His eternal being).45 The reconciliation of the world did not take place without correspondence to, but as the strangely logical nal continuation of, the history in which He is God.46 Jesus Christs resurrection his return from the dead found its condition in and derived from an eternal event in Godself. Put another way, the resurrection was nothing less than the historicization of the intra-triune activity of Gods own being. The resurrection is ontologically signicant because it is the unique telos of Gods eternal decision to instantiate Gods triune being-in-act in the spacetime nexus. It is on the basis of this conviction that Barth writes: It pleased God . . . to reveal and give force and effect to His faithfulness and love in this supreme sense . . . He willed to give to His eternity with Him and therefore to Himself an earthly form. He willed to give to the inner and secret radiance of His glory an outward radiance in the sphere of creation and its history. He willed to give to His eternal life space and time. And that is what He did when He called Jesus Christ to life from the dead.47

45 CD IV/1, p. 204. 46 CD IV/1, p. 204. 47 CD IV/1, p. 308. Dawson also acknowledges the nascent correspondence in CD IV/1 between the resurrection and the divine being in The Resurrection in Karl Barth, pp. 11823, 21619. However, although Dawson notes Barths emphasis on the resurrection as trinitarian self-revelation, he misunderstands the signicance of Barths claim. On Dawsons reading, Barth conceives the resurrection as the reassertion or reafrmation of Gods triune being in the face of death. While Dawsons valuation of Barths suggestive remarks is in some sense correct, it misses the more nuanced trajectory of Barths resurrectiontrinitarian correspondence. As I have shown, the resurrection is presented, not as the reafrmation of the intra-divine life but rather as its telos. The resurrection does not reassert Gods eternal being; it is an event always already grounded in the singular and eternal afrmation of Gods eternal being as a being-for space and time.
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Election
We have just seen that in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, God gave Gods eternal being space and time. As such, the resurrection was nothing less than Gods activation of Godself ad extra. According to Barth, it was the logical continuation and historical fulllment of God the Fathers eternal intra-triune graciousness to the Son in the unity of the Spirit. The question before us now is this: what is the basis upon which Gods eternal being came to historical fulllment in the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Note well that we have not yet asked Cur resurrectio Dei? Our question is rather, Quo iure resurrectio Dei? In other words, on what basis did God not simply remain identical with the inward eternal history of his own being? What was the basis for Gods historicization of Gods being? We have already hinted an answer by noting that God gave force and effect to His [eternal] faithfulness because it pleased God to do so.48 Barth also notes that God gave Gods inner and secret radiance an outward radiance in the sphere of creation and history because He willed all of this. Here, we are evoking reference to Barths doctrine of election. Barths exposition of the doctrine of election does not emphasize the election of sinful humanity to salvation; certainly this too fell under his treatment of the doctrine, but only as a secondary consideration. On Barths terms, Gods eternal election has rst and foremost to do with Jesus Christ: Before all created reality, before all being and becoming in time, before time itself, in the pre-temporal eternity of God, the eternal divine decision as such has as its object and content the existence of this one created being, the man Jesus of Nazareth, and the work of this man in His life and death, His humiliation and exaltation, His obedience and merit . . . this man is the object of the eternal divine decision and foreordination.49 We can deduce from this passage that for Barth, Gods eternal election was the beginning of all the ways and works of God ad extra. We also see that in Barths view, the beginning of Gods work ad extra was primarily the divine determination of the existence of Jesus Christ.50 Such conclusions are far from speculative; here too Barth derives his view from the witness of holy scripture. Barth takes seriously that Jesus Christ was the revelation of Gods mystery hidden for ages and that in him God eventuated Gods eternal will (Eph. 3:911) namely, to gather up all things in him [Jesus Christ], things in heaven and things on earth (Eph. 1:910). In his eternal election to be God in this way, God determined that Jesus Christ might come to have rst place in everything. And in Gods good pleasure, God willed that Jesus Christ would be this One as the rstborn from the dead (Col. 1:1719). Hence, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead was not a mere
48 CD IV/1, p. 308. 49 CD II/2, p. 116. 50 CD II/2, p. 103.
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appendix to Christs atoning death; as one of Gods works ad extra, Jesus resurrection was always already grounded in Gods eternal act of election. Therefore, the answer to our question, Quo iure resurrectio Dei? is this: in Christs resurrection God activated and revealed Godself ad extra because God eternally determined to do so. This is in fact our answer, but more can be said. The nal component of our problematique now brings us to the question, Cur resurrectio Dei? To nd our answer, we must further probe the insight contained in Barths doctrine of election. We have already noted that for Barth, before all created reality . . . in the pre-temporal eternity of God, the eternal divine decision as such has as its object and content the existence of . . . the man Jesus of Nazareth.51 We must now add to this statement another of Barths crucial insights namely, Jesus Christ was not only the primary object but also the subject of Gods election. Jesus Christ the Son of God is both electing God and elected man. As such, Gods eternal act of election was an act of self-determination by which God determined to be God in relationship to the as yet uncreated world. In the words of Bruce McCormack, Barth concludes that election is the [eternal] event in Gods life in which he assigns to himself the being he will have for all eternity. It is an act of Self-determination by means of which God chooses in Jesus Christ love and mercy for the human race and judgment (reprobation) for himself.52 In other words, Gods self-determination to be for the human race was not just instrumental or functional but rst and foremost ontological. As Lord over his own aseity, God elected from eternity to be God for us. God is not simply Deus pro nobis; God is Deus pro nobis in se.53 Since God in se is essentially towards and for humanity, all that God did in Jesus Christ took place pro nobis. Therefore, in response to our question, Cur resurrectio Dei? we can answer that the resurrection was an event which took place for us. This insight does not conict with but emerges from the New Testament itself: on numerous occasions the apostle Paul declares that Jesus Christs resurrection took place for us (2 Cor. 5:15; Rom. 4:25; 6:4; 7:4). Perhaps most pertinently, in Romans 8:29 Paul states that God in eternity risen) to raised Christ from the dead that he might be the determined (pr prwttokon the rst born among us who are his many brothers and sisters. Jesus resurrection was an event pro nobis which was grounded in Gods eternal act of election. To conclude, we can add this insight to our understanding of the resurrection as the historicization of Gods eternal being. In the pre-temporal history of Gods own being God determined that God would give to Godself eternal space and time; this was fullled in Jesus resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus Christ
51 CD II/2, p. 116. 52 Bruce L. McCormack, Grace and Being: The Role of Gods Gracious Election in Karl Barths Theological Ontology, in John Webster, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 98. 53 Cf. Jn 3:16; 12:47; Eph. 1:5, 19; 2 Cor. 5:14.
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was nothing less than the eventuation of Gods eternal will to historicize Gods own eternal act of being the Father who is gracious to the Son in the unity of the Spirit. For this reason, Barth sees the resurrection as the event which, rooted in Gods eternal election, crowns and reveals [in time] the [eternal] obedience rendered by the Son, and the grace and mercy of the Father.54 As we have seen, this work of God was not without correspondence to but rather the logical nal continuation of55 Gods eternal triune being-in-act. But this was no arbitrary event. It did not take place without regard for humanity. On the contrary, it took place pro nobis. From all eternity, God willed to make his eternal home among mortals; before all created existence God chose that He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them . . . and they will see his face (Rev. 21:3). That is the work of Gods eternal will which came to completion in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In Barths words: In the event of His resurrection from the dead, His being and action as very God and very man emerged from the concealment of His particular existence . . . In it He expressed Himself from without for us. In it He gave Himself to be seen and understood and known as the saving, upholding, sustaining center of His circumference, as the salvation of all creation and therefore for us all.56

The question of Hegeling

Before proceeding, it must be restated that this essay has not attempted to explain the chief material insights contained in Barths theology of the resurrection.57 For Barth, the resurrection has rst and foremost to do with humanitys reconciliation to God: In Jesus Christ man is exalted and appointed to the life for which God has set him free in the death of Jesus Christ. God has so to speak abandoned the sphere of His glory and man may now take this place. That is the Easter message, the goal of reconciliation, of mans redemption.58
54 CD IV/1, p. 334. Although the phrase in time and the word eternal do not appear in the text, they do not belie but rather illuminate Barths otherwise obscure meaning. I have added them for clarication in service of summarizing my exposition. 55 CD IV/1, p. 204. 56 Karl Barth, Chuch Dogmatics, vol. III, The Doctrine of Reconciliation, pt 1, trans. G.W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1961), p. 283. 57 For Barth, the resurrection is certainly more than this but nothing less. For a more detailed treatment of the central focus of Barths doctrine of the resurrection, see Dawson, The Resurrection in Karl Barth, pp. 2, 3363. According to Dawson, Barths commentary on 1 Corinthians 15, The Resurrection of the Dead, contains the basic insights upon which Barth built the entire sweep of his later, more developed doctrine of the resurrection. 58 Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, trans. G.T. Thompson (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), p. 121.
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This insight, which we have scarcely regarded, should not be eclipsed but rather augmented and vivied by the preceding observations. But however peripheral to the heart of Barths theology the above view might be, it must be admitted that it occasions not a few questions about Barths theology. Not the least of these is the extent to which Barth took some of his (at least formal) cues from the philosophical theology of G.W.F Hegel. Recent scholarship tends to minimize Barths relationship to Hegel. However, the present essay suggests a closer connection between Barth and Hegel, especially in light of Hegels treatment of the resurrection in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion.59 Therein, one happens upon an exposition of Christs resurrection whose formal contours not only resemble Barths; at times, the symmetry of pattern and conguration between Hegels argument and Barths seems uncanny. Like Barth, Hegel explains the resurrection as the historical fulllment of Gods eternal beingin-act. Obviously an essay of this length cannot fully explore such a claim, but even a brief exposition of Hegels concepts of the Trinity and Jesus Christs resurrection sufciently evinces a noteworthy degree of similitude. Much like Barth, Hegel was thoroughly arrested by Gods triunity. However, Hegel found the language of Father, Son and Holy Spirit childlike (kindlich) and gurative (bildlich) representations (Vorstellungen) in need of philosophical translation.60 As Peter Hodgson points out in his editorial introduction, Hegel believed that the Trinity could be most adequately grasped in purely speculative, logical categories as the dialectic of unity, differentiation, and return.61 As such, Hegel used traditional triune language for the sake of convention; Hegel was mostly concerned to preserve (but logically reformulate) the relationships symbolized by the triune persons. For Hegel, the Father is the universal, totalizing Idea. In distinction from the Father, the Son is innite particularity God in Gods mode of appearance. The Spirit, as the sublation of the FatherSon distinction, is innite singularity. In his lectures of 1827 and 1831, Hegel taught that the inner divine life consists in the eternal self-determined act of self-differentiation whereby the Father as the universal idea itself posits an other in an eternal act of primal division. This other is the Son as innite particularity, which stands over against the universal. This act of self-differentiation, writes Hegel, is Gods entire idea in and for itself, so that these two determinations are also one and the same for each other, an identity, the One. But, Hegel notes, there is more to Gods eternal act than just self-distinction; there is also return:

59 60 61

Dawsons volume, The Resurrection in Karl Barth, is thorough but nowhere notes the correspondence between Barths doctrine of the resurrection and Hegels. Frederick C. Beiser, Hegel (New York: Routledge, 2005), p. 149. G.W.F. Hegel, The Christian Religion: Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, vol. 3, ed. Peter C. Hodgson (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press for the American Academy of Religion, 1979), p. 17.

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Adam Eitel this distinction [is] implicitly sublated . . . insofar as . . . what posits itself [is] no distinction at all; hence the one remains present to itself in the other. That this is so is the Holy Spirit itself, or expressed in the mode of sensibility, it is eternal love: the Holy Spirit is eternal love.62

In simpler terms, Hegel understands Gods triunity as Gods self-differentiation-inunity. The Father always at once posits the Son as an other. But the Spirit always already sublates this act of self-differentiation in an eternal moment of return:63 Eternal being-in-and-for-itself is what discloses itself, determines itself, divides itself, posits itself as what is differentiated from itself, but the difference is at the same time constantly sublated.64 Hodgson notes that Hegel locates the possibility for Gods relating to the world in Gods eternal triune activity. On Hodgsons reading, Hegel thinks that the triune activity ad extra reects the triune activity ad intra. In other words, for Hegel the inner dialectic of the triune life is outwardly reenacted in the economic or worldly Trinity Gods relation to the world in creation, incarnation, reconciliation, and spiritual community [the Church].65 In sum, for Hegel there is a correspondence between (not an identity of) the immanent and economic Trinities.66 On the basis of Hegels Lectures, Hodgsons reading seems on the mark; here especially Hegel emphasizes the correspondence between Gods eternal triune activity and the Christian representation of reconciliation: In the other religions, God is still something other than what he reveals himself to be . . . God is the inner and the unknown; he is not as he appears to consciousness. But precisely here [in the Christian religion it is maintained] [sic]: (a) that he appears, he reveals his own denition; (b) [that] [sic] precisely this appearing implicitly of the universal, not in a xed, nite determinate form but as subsumed, the transgured divine world is an appearing as he is. (Gods being is his action, his revelatory action.) [sic]67 In an excerpt from one of his nal lectures, Hegel more thoroughly explains the history of Jesus Christs death and resurrection: [Jesus Christs] death is the testimony that humanity is in Christ even to the most extreme point . . . But then at once there enters . . . the reversal. The death of God is innite negation, and God maintains himself in death, so that this process is rather a putting to death of death, a resurrection into life. We are told that

62 63 64 65 66 67

Hegel, Lectures, p. 276. Hegel, Lectures, p. 17. Hegel, Lectures, p. 291. Hegel, Lectures, p. 77. Hegel, Lectures, p. 17. Hegel, Lectures, p. 64.
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Christ himself appeared to his disciples again after his death, and that this was followed by his ascension and his sitting at the right hand of God.68 This history Hegel concludes, is not a mysterious account of a god who is something other than what he reveals himself to be.69 Rather, for Hegel, This history is the same explication of the divine nature itself.70 For this reason, Hegel explains Jesus death and resurrection as follows: These are the moments with which we are here concerned and which establish that humanity has become conscious of the eternal history, the eternal movement, which God himself is.71 To better understand his meaning, we may recall Hegels understanding of the Trinity. For Hegel, God has Gods eternal being in the Fathers (the universal idea itself) eternal act of simultaneously positing the Son (innite particularity) as other and sublating that distinction in the unity of the Spirit (absolute singularity) so that the one remains present to itself in the other.72 In the history of reconciliation, Gods eternal intra-triune act is unchanged. For Hegel this is true for two reasons: rst, just as the otherness of the Son is sublated in eternity, so is it sublated in time by the sacricial death of Jesus Christ: To sacrice means to sublate the natural, to sublate otherness. It is said: Christ has died for all. This is not a single act but the eternal divine history: it is a moment in the nature of God himself; it has taken place in God himself.73 Second, just as in Gods eternal being the Sons otherness is at the same time constantly sublated74 in the unity of Spirit, so also in time is Jesus Christs death reversed. For Hegel, Jesus resurrection is the historical correlate to an eternal movement in the divine being: In the reconciliation of the world, God has died, God is dead . . . negation itself is found in God . . . However, the process does not come to a halt at this point, rather, a reversal takes place: God, that is to say, maintains himself in this process, and the latter is only the death of death. God rises again to life, and thus things are reversed. The resurrection . . . concludes this history, which, as understood by [believing] consciousness, is the explication of the divine nature itself.75 For Hegel, Jesus resurrection is the telos of Gods reconciling the world to Godself. This history, we are told, explicates the divine nature itself namely, the actus purus of the inner divine life, the process of differentiation and return contained
68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 Hegel, Lectures, p. 371. Hegel, Lectures, p. 64. Hegel, Lectures, p. 371. Hegel, Lectures, p. 327. Hegel, Lectures, p. 276. Hegel, Lectures, p. 328. Hegel, Lectures, p. 291. Hegel, Lectures, p. 324. Hegel notes that Jesus resurrection, followed by the glorication and ascension of Christ, concludes the history of reconciliation. However, since the resurrection is the sublation of Jesus death, Hegel sees it as prime. Jesus resurrection is conceived in connection with his ascension and glorication as the inchoative moment within one event.

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within the eternal idea.76 For Hegel, the resurrection is nothing less than the historical fulllment of Gods eternal being. At this point, the symmetry of Barths and Hegels expositions is hardly worth belaboring. Said briey, both Barth and Hegel think that the intra-triune relationship between the Father, Son and Spirit was reiterated and expressed in the history of reconciliation. As the telos of Jesus history, the resurrection was for Barth and Hegel the historical fulllment of a movement and action which took place . . . rst and foremost in God Himself77 the concluding explication of the divine nature itself.78

Conclusion
The foregoing essay demonstrates (1) that Barth is able to conceptualize the resurrection as the historicization of Gods eternal being and (2) that such a view at least formally corresponds to the one taught by Hegel in the nal lectures of his life. Naturally, this raises questions about Barths relationship to Hegels philosophical theology. As noted, current scholarship tends to minimize Barths relationship to Hegels theological philosophy. For example, in his article, Barth und Hegel: zur Erkenntnis eines methodischen Verfahrens bei Barth, Michael Welker argues that Barths serious interaction with Hegels thought was conned to the year 1929.79 On this basis, Welker concludes that despite the similarity between their respective theologoumena, Barths theology must have developed quite independently of Hegel. But given the striking similarity between each respective authors treatments of the resurrection, one may want to question Welkers argument. On this note, one is especially reminded of a letter Barth wrote in September 1953: As Christians we must have the freedom to let the most varied ways of thinking run through our heads. For example, I can entertain elements of Marxism without becoming a Marxist . . . Today we are offered existentialism, and it too doubtless has important elements . . . I myself have a certain weakness for Hegel and am always fond of doing a bit of Hegeling.80 With Barths self-declared penchant in mind, one question to ask is, Just how fond was Barth of Hegeling? Also, noting the most often cited source in Barths
76 Hegel, Lectures, p. 324. 77 CD IV/1, p. 304. 78 Hegel, Lectures, p. 324. 79 Michael Welker, Barth und Hegel: zur Erkenntnis eines methodischen Verfahrens bei Barth, Evangelische Theologie 43 (1983), pp. 30728. 80 Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2005), p. 387. Interestingly, this letter was written only a few months after Barths completion of CD IV/1. This volume, as seen throughout this essay, is where Barths view of the resurrection as the historical fulllment of Gods being comes particularly to expression.
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chapter on Hegel in his book Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century compounds our curiosity. Judging by frequency of citation, Barth appears most familiar with Hegels Vorlesungen ber die Philosophie der Religion the very place where (as we have just seen) Hegel gives his theology of the resurrection its sharpest focus.81 For George Hunsinger, the relationship between Barths thought and Hegels is purely formal. Hunsinger has noted that Barths understanding of the relationship between nature and grace resembles a Hegelian pattern (Aufhebung). However, Hunsinger qualies this statement: within [Barths] theology [the Hegelian pattern] is never used to assert or imply that nature is drawn into a kind of synthesis with grace, as if the end result of the miraculous transformation were a kind of monism.82 While Hunsinger is correct to stress the difference between the way Barth and Hegel conceive Gods freedom, the present essay suggests that the similitude of their respective theologoumena may transcend mere formality. Envisaging the resurrection as the historicization of Gods being implies some measure of ontological union between Creator and creation. On Barths part, this would not necessarily involve a Hegelian synthesis per se but perhaps a certain divine ontological accretion; the similitude of Barths view and Hegels is not so much in Barths divinization of history but rather in his historicization of the divine. Whatever the extent of Barths Hegeling, the present essay raises signicant questions about Barths theological trajectory. For example, if the resurrection is the historical fulllment of Gods eternal triune being-in-act, what is the consequent view of pre-Easter history? Must we not regard it as nothing less than the coming-to-fulllment of Gods historicization? Also, if the resurrection was the historicization of Gods being, and all of history leading up to Easter was the coming-to-fulllment of Gods historicization, what is the consequent view of history qua history? If Barth is right to say that Jesus resurrection was indeed the the telos of the way which He has gone in the person and work, in the history of Jesus Christ,83 then must we not begin with this event? To understand the meaning and purpose of all other history, must we not look to the telos of his history the history of him who from the foundation of the world was not only the slaughtered Lamb (Rev. 13:8) but also the rstborn of the dead (Rev. 1:5)?84

See Karl Barth, Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century, trans. John Bowden and Brian Cozens, new edn (London: SCM Press, 2001), pp. 370407. 82 Hunsinger, How to Read Karl Barth, p. 98. 83 CD IV/1, p. 345. 84 On the nal page of Gods Being is in Becoming, p. 123, Eberhard Jngel has made a similar suggestion after concluding his treatment of Barths doctrines of the Trinity and election. Jngel concludes that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was the victory in which it was established through grace why there is something at all, and not rather nothing. My thanks go to John Drury and Daniel Migliore for their invaluable comments on an earlier draft of this article.
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