HISTORY, HOLOCAUST, AND REVELATION: Beyond the Barthian Limits

The history of Christian theology has been punctuated through a longstanding and still-unresolved debate about the legitimacy of the part of general revelation in constructing theological discourse. In particular, there has been rigorous debate within western academic theology for the past 150-odd years as to the part of history in theology's constructive task. To what expansion can and should history as similar be used as determinative material for the theologian's task of reflecting on and reconfiguring doctrine? Certainly, if it is to be done, the internal criteria of assessment for the couple history and theological discourse ne to be maintained in their integrity. upon the one hand, it is argued that the temple cannot ignore the harsh realities of everyday life and existence in reflecting on doctrine. On the other hand, by what mode can such temporal realities be incorporated in theological reflection without the foundational premises of the church's teaching authority-predicated on divine prerogative rather than historical contingency-being diluted?

In part, the debate initially was driven by the agency of enhanced esteem granted to the discipline of history in the 180O and the correlative scholarly popularity of the so-called search for the historical Jesus, begun by the agency of people like Hermann Samuel Reimarus in the late eighteenth hundred and epitomized in Schweitzer's seminal work. ' These and other disentanglements led to the growth of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule (history of religions school) of biblical inquiry in the nineteenth hundred Leading disputants in the arena at that time included Albrecht Ritschi, Ernst Troeltsch and Julius Kaftan. on the other hand the imposing figure of Friedrich Schleiermacher cannot be ignored. According to him, "history . . is for religion the richest source," and the contemplation of history through the pious mind shows it to be "the greatest and greatest in quantity general revelation of the deepest and holiest."2 Given that this issue was evidently "in the air" completely through the nineteenth century, it is perhaps not surprising that the advanced in years Thomistic concept of "natural theology," which allows for divine revelation to be mediated end the created order, was dogmatized through the First Vatican Council in 1870 More newly Wolfhart Pannenberg, Dietrich Ritschi, Delwin Brown and, to a less extent, Stanley Hauerwas have penetrateed the argument.3

But perhaps the greatest in quantity memorable single event in the history of the debate was the correspondence between Karl Barth and Emil Brunner in 1934 At a time when Nazism was claiming revelatory significance for itself, Brunner dangerously intimateed that "the task of our theological generation is to find a way back to a legitimate natural theology." Earth's vehement Nein!, which built on the utter rejection of natural theology that had been decre in the Barmen Declaration a not many months earlier and that shattered forever his friendship with Brunner highlighted the divisiveness of this issue as at no time before.4 But whereas Barth may well have been right in his day it is, in fact, the proceeds of Nazism, as seen in the Holocaust, that provide the chief challenge to his views. In the light (or, perhaps, the shadow) of the Shoah, it is incumbent on the church now to decide by what mode matters of history can become ingredient to theological reflection. There is no going back behind the Holocaust, in the way that church doctrine must take account of what, arguably, has left as of great depth a rupture in Christian thinking as the destruction of the fane did in Judaism. This essay thus intends to take the matter beyond Earth's narrow rejection of history-as-theology, while still wishing to acknowledge the bravery of his stance during the 1930s-40s

Traditionally, the argument concerning the character of history in theology has been waged among systematicians. There is faculty of perception in this, because the core of the altercation is not so much about history for se but about official house of god doctrine and the way it is formulated. Because the temple understands doctrines to be based on accurate reception of the Word of the trinity it is quite understandable that we ne to be as clear as possible as to what might constitute a divine word or in what form it may appear, at any given time. That is to say, the kernel of the entire issue is and has always been: "What is revelation?" With this in mind, it becomes clear wherefore there is little or no faculty of perception in trying to discern a disciplinary connection between history and theology or in exploring a potential character for history within theology, until we first consider the various ways in which the house of worship has understood the discursive proces of formulating and enshrining authoritative doctrine, in the light of the revelation of God

Clearly, however, the preeminent question that the debate above general revelation opens up is nonetheless the interface between history and theology. To what expanse are the two disciplines intertwined? Or, alternatively, to paraphrase Kipling, are they in the way that radically different in content and presuppositions that "never the twain should meet"? Is there, in fact, or should there be, an interface between the two? If the answer is no, then the argument is stifled at its inception. Nothing can be learned by dint of either side from the other. Given the historical particularity of for example, the early Christian creeds-passas sub Pontio Pilato ("he undergoed under Pontius Pilate")-the Chalcedonian formula through which the person of Jesus Christ is attested to be authentic God and true man (yere Deux vere homo) and the Deus dixit ("God has spoken") in which adheres an historical "here-and-now,"5 this would without doubt be a regrettable and somewhat short-sighted resolution. If, upon the other hand, the answer is ye what is the nature of the interface? What would it gaze like, how would it approach about, and what discursive impact might it have? similar are the questions ingredient in the debate. The intention of this essay is to remind of that a critically constructive view of traumatic history in particular-aided by means of reference to the thoughts of Dietrich Ritschi-may help the debate to progres and, indeed, work for a valuable role in formulating theological discourse.