~ Updated and Revised: February 21st, 2019 ~

In the following letter in the book Karl Barth: Letters 1961-1968, Karl Barth says that Cornelius Van Til considered him to be "possibly the worst heretic of all time". It is well known that that Van Til despised Barth and wrote two books against his theologian, on one of which is "Christianity and Barthianism" that is placing Barth in juxtaposition to Christianity. Even if Van Til denies that he called Barth an arch-heretic, his appraisal of Barth is clear. Cornelius Van Til attempted several times to meet Karl Barth during Barth's 1962 American tour to have his questions answered by Barth in person, but the two never directly conversed. How does our great Church Father Karl Barth respond to Van Til and the criticism of fundamentalism? In the following letter by Karl Barth to Geoffrey W. Bromiley, we have an example how Barth responded to such fundamentalist rock throwing.

Letter 3: To Dr. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Pasadena, California

June 1, 1961

Dear Dr. Bromiley,

Please excuse me and please try to understand that I cannot and will not answer the questions these people put.(1)

To do so in the time requested would in any case be impossible for me. The claims of work in my last semester as an academic teacher (preparation of lectures and seminars, doctoral dissertations, etc.) are too great. But even if I had the time and strength I would not enter into a discussion of the questions proposed.

Such a discussion would have to rest on the primary presupposition that those who ask the questions have read, learned, and pondered the many things I have already said and written about these matters. They have obviously not done this, but have ignored the many hundreds of pages in the Church Dogmatics where they might at least have found out—not necessarily under the headings of history, universalism, etc. —where I really stand and do not stand. From that point they could have gone on to pose further questions.

I sincerely respect the seriousness with which a man like [G.C.] Berkouwer studies me and then makes his criticisms.(2) I can then answer him in detail.(3) But I cannot respect the questions of these people from Christianity Today, for they do not focus on the reasons for my statements but on certain foolishly drawn deductions from them. Their questions are thus superficial.

The decisive point, however, is this. The second presupposition of a fruitful discussion between them and me would have to be that we are able to talk on a common plane. But these people have already had their so-called orthodoxy for a long time. They are closed to anything else, they will cling to it at all costs, and they can adopt toward me only the role of prosecuting attorneys, trying to establish whether what I represent agrees or disagrees with their orthodoxy, in which I for my part have no interest! None of their questions leaves me with the impression that they want to seek with me the truth that is greater than us all. They take the stance of those who happily possess it already and who hope to enhance their happiness by succeeding in proving to themselves and the world that I do not share this happiness. Indeed they have long since decided and publicly proclaimed that I am a heretic, possibly (van Til) the worst heretic of all time.(4) So be it! But they should not expect me to take the trouble to give them the satisfaction of offering explanations which they will simply use to confirm the judgment they have already passed on me.

Dear Dr. Bromiley, you will no doubt remember what I said in the preface to Church Dogmatics IV/2 in the words of an eighteenth-century poem on those who eat up men.(5) The continuation of the poem is as follows: “… for there is no true love where one man eats another.” These fundamentalists want to eat me up. They have not yet come to a “better mind and attitude” as I once hoped. I can thus give them neither an angry nor a gentle answer but instead no answer at all.

With friendly greetings,

Yours,

KARL BARTH

P.S. I ask you to convey what I have said in a suitable manner to the people at Christianity Today

Footnotes:

(1) Professior Geoffrey W. Bromiley of Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, was coeditor and chief translator of the English version of the Church Dogmatics. At the request of the editor of Christianity Today, and as a personal favor to him, Bromiley asked Barth whether he would answer some critical questions put by the American theologians Clark, Klooster, and van Til (see appendix 3).

(2) G. C. Berkouwer, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956).

(3) C.D. IV, 2, p. xii, IV, 3 pp. 173-180.

(4) Cf. C. van Til, The New Modernism (Philadelphia, 1946), and later, in defense of his view against Berkouwer, Christianity and Barthianism (Philadelphia, 1962).

(5) "There are obviously fundamentalists with whom dialogue is possible, only butchers and cannibals are beyond the pale, and even they only provisionally, for there is always hope that they will attain to better mind and attitude." [Barth's instincts here were not unsound, for it appeared later that the three theologians would have ben given the last word in counter-replies to his replies. G.W.B.]

Barth, Karl. Karl Barth Letters 1961-1968. Ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Jürgen Fangmeier, and Hinrich Stoevesandt. Trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1981. 7-8. Print.