1934

The Dispute over Natural Theology: Brunner, Barth's "Nein!" and the Barmen Declaration (1934)

In 1933 Barth spoke out against the "strange gods" that pervert theology through the conjunction "and": "revelation and reason," "revelation and religious consciousness," "revelation and creation." Brunner objected in Nature and Grace (1934): the image of God in human beings formally survived the fall, and this is a "point of contact" for grace; there must be room for God's witness to the pagans, for "preserving grace" and for "orders of creation." Barth replied with a sharp "Nein!": natural theology is excluded, and he linked a "theology of compromise" with the German church's capitulation to Nazism. The first article of the Barmen Declaration (1934), drafted mainly by Barth, proclaimed Jesus Christ, as attested in Scripture, the one Word of God and rejected other "events, powers, figures and truths" as divine revelation alongside him.