Why?
Well, for starters, it's Barth. He's been called the 20th century's equivalent of a "church father". So when you have the chance to read Barth, there's always a previous question: "Should I read Barth?"
It is, after all, just over 10,000 pages of small print. The answer of course is, "Yes". I think everyone should read some Barth. (As influential as Barth was on the culture -- he was featured in Time magazine in 1962, after all -- the kind editors at Encyclopedia Brittannica agree with me, and included his The Word of God and the Word of Man in their "Great Books of the Western World", second series, in Volume 55.)
So, I'm often asked how best to read Barth. This is my advice.
1. Get the overview.
Because the Church Dogmatics is such a massive work, it helps to get a broad overview of the "whole" before engaging "the parts". This is where the compiled "Summaries" in the Index Volume (pp. 1-13) come in handy.
I also recommend you check out the appropriate section of Bromiley's book, An Introduction to the Theology of Karl Barth. Bromiley provides a section-by-section exposition of the whole. But, reader beware: Reading Bromiley won't get you out of reading Barth. Any more than a commentary gets you out of reading the biblical text.
If you're still not sure about those summaries, and just aren't sure where you want to start, then I recommend the next-best-thing. Reading Barth's '46 lectures on the Apostles' Creed to theological students at Bonn, and later published as Dogmatics in Outline. I think this beautiful little book is such a great introduction to Barth that I always have my theology students reading it. (And it's inexpensive and still in print!) While Dogmatics in Outline isn't an abridged Church Dogmatics, reading this little book still brings you face-to-face with Barth and his distinctive ideas, all of which receive much greater detail in Church Dogmatics. So it's a start.
2. Understand what Dogmatics is.
Every now and then (a lot, actually!) I find students presuming that Barth is just so full of himself that he could write so much on theology. Thing is, Dogmatics was a half-life-long record of Barth's lectures to his students, so this is a genuine labor of love for Christ and his Church. Nearly everything in all those volumes first saw the light of day as a lecture. That "oral tradition" alone puts Barth in the company of biblical prophets. We're dealing with material here that's meant to be heard.
So, sometimes if you're dealing with a passage that's hard to understand, I recommend reading Barth out loud. That highlights the oral nature of the material. What may seem to be full of repetition when read silently may come rhetorically alive once read loud. To deliver a lecture lasting over three decades obviously required that Barth needed to remind his students of things that had been said earlier, not to mention that he was continually speaking to new students who were just becoming acquainted with his unfolding theology!
3. Understand the broad structure of the collection.
Barth intended this series to run 5 volumes and he worked at expanding the broad outline for over 35 years (from approximately 1932 until Barth's death in 1968). Even becoming aware of the broad movement of the work can help when you sometimes find yourself lost in the details. It may also be helpful to understand that the Dogmatics is structured around a trinitarian framework. Thus, in volume I, Barth expounds upon his trinitarian doctrine of revelation, and in volume II about the knowledge of God and his election in Christ. This is followed in volumes III, IV, and V, to speak broadly about God the Father the Creator, God the Son the Reconciler, and God the Holy Spirit the Redeemer.
- Volume I -- The Doctrine of the Word of God (2 half-volumes)
- Volume II -- The Doctrine of God (2 half volumes)
- Volume III -- The Doctrine of Creation (4 quarter volumes)
- Volume IV -- The Doctrine of Reconciliation (incomplete, but includes 2 part volumes, and 1 part volume in 2 parts, and 1 “fragment” volume! = 5 parts)
- Volume V -- The Doctrine of Redemption (never begun)
Barth conceived of the Dogmatics as being comprised of a single work in multiple part volumes. The entire work is divided up into "chapters" and "paragraphs", with the paragraphs being marked off with the symbol known as a "section sign" (§). Each "paragraph" begins with a "summary" which originally was a carefully worded sentence which Barth would likely have expected students to write down verbatim and upon which he would expound for the remainder of the section. Also, within the chapters and sections there are "regular" and "small print" sections. The regular sections are where Barth expounded his main ideas and the "small print" sections are where Barth provided insight into the "exegesis" and "historical background" that led him to his conclusions. I like to think of these sections more or less as Barth's well developed research notes. They're also the sections most likely to contain references to other works and authors with whom Barth was engaging. (Forget footnotes or endnotes, other than an occasional editorial insert.) While not always true, it is also the case that the regular print sections tend to have more of an "oral" style, while the small print sections tend to read more as technical or encyclopedic in nature.
Barth occasionally insisted that people who couldn't afford the time to read the whole Dogmatics could still benefit from reading the large print sections and simply ignoring the "small print" sections. Thing is, I think some of Barth's greatest theological nuggets are in the small print sections.
One small warning: Greek, Hebrew and Latin citations from biblical and classical authors are scattered liberally throughout the small print sections, especially in the earlier volumes. Those without the ability to read these languages unfortunately will have to rely on someone who has the linguistic training to help them through, though having appropriate dictionaries available can help. (Logos Software now has the Dogmatics on cd, and those languages are translated into English ... if you're okay with digital formats. Way more expensive than the paperbacks, though.)
5. Read a lot and read a little.
In my experience, reading Barth in both large and small chunks helps you digest him better. Press yourself to read large sections, even if sometimes you have to slog through and don't know everything that's going on. This will help you start to notice some of his themes on your own. Reading Barth is a lot like conditioning to run a marathon. Be intentional but still push yourself.
6. Start a reading group.
That's right. Don't read Barth alone! He's more enjoyable and understandable in a group. (These were lectures, remember.) Reading with others will also help you begin to notice leitmotifs. (This is good advice for reading the Bible as well.)
7. Read George Hunsinger's How to Read Karl Barth: The Shape of His Theology.
Thing is, you shouldn't read this book without you've already started reading Barth's Dogmatics. The title makes you believe it's an introduction for the beginner. It isn't. (For that, try this book.) If you're reading Hunsinger, make sure you've already read about 100 pages or so of Barth. Because, basically, Hunsinger provides some help in making your reading profitable, but he thinks there's no one "key" to understanding Barth. (I'm not sure that's true of Barth himself, but Hunsinger does.) In fact, Hunsinger finds 6 "themes" that characterize the Dogmatics. I won't burden the point too much, but here are Hunsinger's six motifs:
- Actualism: Actual events of God’s action in history shape reality as we experience it. We understand history by how God has actually acted; we do not interpret how God has acted through a general theory of history.
- Particularism: The particular and concrete logically and theologically precedes the general and the abstract. The Incarnation in its unique particularity must inform the general nature of humanity; a general theory of humanity does not inform the particular nature of a human named Jesus
- Objectivism: Theological claims must be shaped by the object they seek to describe. God must be spoken of in terms of how he himself objectively presents himself ("reveals" himself) to us.
- Personalism: Knowledge of God is knowledge of God as one who is to be known as a "personal" being and not merely as a "control belief".
- Realism: Language about God is based on Scriptural language that is neither "literalist" (theological language cannot be equated directly to God) nor "expressivist" (theological language is not merely that which is expressed when thinking about God), but a "real analogy" to God. (If you're not sure the difference, may I recommend Lindbeck's Nature of Doctrine?)
- Rationalism: The mystery of God can be coherently spoken of without needing to comprehend God; Theology is a "rational wrestling with mystery".
8. Remember, this is a Church Dogmatics.
Barth was a theologian for the pastor. He intended that the Dogmatics serve the pastor who was faced with the task of preaching from week to week. Indeed, Barth insisted that a theology that forgot that it was in service to the task of preaching was a theology that had lost its moorings. The Dogmatics is intended (and whether Barth succeeded or not can only be tested in the pulpit and podium) to help to answer the question of what it is that we should preach and teach concerning God and the Gospel, and not simply what we think we can "know" or "prove" about God. For Barth, a dogmatics that doesn't ask how this or that doctrine needs to be preached or taught, is a dogmatics that has not yet understood its own task. As Barth himself says,
No single item of Christian doctrine is legitimately grounded, or rightly developed or expounded, unless it can of itself be understood and explained as part of the responsibility laid upon the hearing and teaching Church towards the self-revelation of God attested in Holy Scripture (II/1, 35).Barth's intention that the Dogmatics serve the preacher first and foremost was confirmed, in part, by the editors of the series who, in the Index volume to the Dogmatics, include what they call "Aids to the Preacher", which include about 800 extracts from the volumes of the Dogmatics, mostly exegetical notes on a particular Sunday's selected Scripture passages for the Church Year as outlined in the Lutheran 1958 Ordnung der Predigttexte ("Rules of Sermon Texts").
In good Barthian fashion, in fact, I'd say that all theology must be labored with and for the Church. This isn't a novel idea at all, either. It's quite classic. Take a look at Ellen Charry's By the Renewing of Your Mind if this is a really new idea for you.
9. So, above all, keep the joy in your reading. Because that joy is the very heart of theology.
Whatever you do, do not allow yourself to become discouraged if you do not reach your goal of reading a certain number of pages in a year, or when you fail to finish the whole Dogmatics in the years you allotted. Remember that not even Barth himself finished the task he has set out to accomplish. In one of numerous interviews conducted near the end of his career, Barth once quipped, "There is a certain merit to an unfinished dogmatics," he said, "It points to the eschatological character of theology!" In other words, the goal should be less to worry about finishing the Church Dogmatics and more to realize that the work of dogmatics is never finished! So enjoy the journey, learn, grow, and cry out, as Barth often did, "Come, Lord Jesus! Veni Creator Spiritus! [Come Spirit Creator]".