Ethics with Barth: God, Metaphysics and Morals. By MATTHEW ROSE. * Christian Ethics as Witness: Barth's Ethics for a World at Risk. By DAVID HADDORFF.

Abstract

‘The human soul is Christian by nature’ writes Matthew Rose (p. 1). However, ‘[h]uman beings simply cannot ask themselves the question to which God is the answer’ (p. 127). What seems like a paradox is consciously chosen as the theological foundation of Rose's monograph on Barth's ethics. This dissertation from the University of Chicago is one of several recent Roman Catholic discussions of Barth's ethics of creation. The Thomist thinker first describes Barth's fundamental dogmatic commitments and spells out their ethical implications in order to present Barth's ethics of creation in CD III/4. Rose repeatedly maintains that the revelation in Christ is the revelation of God, of God's law, of creation, and of humanity, and not the other way around. Clinging to this revelation, however, the analysis of creation can ‘ascend … from the cave to the divine light’ (p. 49). This would be impossible if creation were not ‘ordered to God’ (ibid.). Humanity now appears fundamentally relational, which constitutes an analogy to God's relational being. Rose can corroborate many of these claims with references to CD III/1–3. While his reading of Barth's ethics in II/2 is fairly selective, he does not aim at a complete vindication of Barth's thought. Nonetheless, he proposes combining the relational concept with Barth's notion of ‘the humanity of God’ as revealed in Christ, pointing to an ‘anthropological turn’ (p. 106) in Barth's theology that rests on metaphysical presuppositions. God's eternal aseity does not mean rivalry with creation. The created order should be highlighted precisely because it is grounded in God's sovereign, free decision for creation. Due to the eternal love of the omnipotent God, creation rests on solid ground in the face of temporal distortions.