Between the Times – and Sometimes Beyond: An Essay in Dialectical Theology and its Critique of Religion and “Religion”

Hartmut Von Sass

doi:10.1515/opth-2020-0104

Abstract

AbstractThis paper gives a systematic account of Dialectical Theology (DT) and its surprisingly ramified usage of the concept of religion on the backdrop of recent debates about the “return of religion.” First, the positional context between Schleiermacher and Barth is sketched. Second, the highly divergent positions of Bultmann, Barth, Brunner as well as Gogarten and Tillich are presented – always in regard to their sometimes programmatic, sometimes rather hidden references to “religion” between its facticity and normativity. Third and by way of conclusion, it is suggested to restrict “religion” as a concept to non-theological disciplines, i.e., to treat “religion” as a strictly empirical and sociological term, whereas theology is concerned with faith that belongs to a very different game than religion, as DT helps to clarify.

Highlights

This paper gives a systematic account of Dialectical Theology (DT) and its surprisingly ramified usage of the concept of religion on the backdrop of recent debates about the “return of religion.”
While it is true that the Schleiermacherian way of doing theology entails at least the danger to lose God as theology’s object by reducing the theological work to religion,[14] it is true that Schleiermacher tries to build a cordon around religion for separating it against a devastating mixture with other modes of relating to the “universe.” it is crucial to appreciate the combination of both normative claims, because Schleiermacher’s critics tend to concentrate only on the first one, while neglecting the second
He uses different conceptual pairs to present that clear cut: “time” and “eternity,” “faith” and “sin,” “God’s reality” and “human religion.”[61]. In his writings leading to the Church Dogmatics, Barth tries to find the right assessment of that duality and to deal with it adequately; it is interesting to see that he appreciates the “dialectical” way between affirmation and its denial on the one hand and that he shows his reservation against that approach on the other, because of its inability to reach God’s reality

Summary

The liberal “heresy”: a prelude

Giving an account of the current state of religion in the West is, often enough, based on one specific metaphor: “return.” That metaphorical framework is intentionally or implicitly ambivalent, and it is precisely this ambivalence between sketching a specific development and leaving space for its. While it is true that the Schleiermacherian way of doing theology entails at least the danger to lose God as theology’s object by reducing the theological work to religion,[14] it is true that Schleiermacher tries to build a cordon around religion for separating it against a devastating mixture with other modes of relating to the “universe.” it is crucial to appreciate the combination of both normative claims, because Schleiermacher’s critics (such as Barth, see Section 3.2) tend to concentrate only on the first one, while neglecting the second. In its foundations was already the seed sown to its downfall and the resources for transforming it into new theological programs.[35]

Bultmann and the dialectics of existence

Barth on religion as unbelief

Brunner on psychologism and revelation

Tillich and Gogarten on religion as culture’s crisis