“But the personal faith of
the candidate is indispensable to baptism.”
Karl Barth introduces this
part-volume by admitting that his magisterial Church Dogmatics, even after six million words and thirteen
part-volumes, will remain “an opus imperfectum” (vii). He notes that
this present Christian ethics, particularly the Sacraments, as a “free and
active answer of man” to God’s work and word of grace (ix) and that his
doctrine opposes “the custom, or abuse, of infant baptism” (x). He foresees out
of this that, with this, his last major publication, he is “thus about to make
a poor exit with it. So be it!” (xii) Through this introduction, I got the
sense that the reason Barth decided to publish this fragment was his passion in
attacking infant baptism.
Barth
begins the actual explication of his doctrine by affirming that the foundation
of the Christian life is one’s “baptism with the Holy Spirit” (2), or
alternatively, “the event of the Christian life” (3), how one becomes a
Christian (4). My former teacher at Pacific Lutheran Seminary, Timothy Lull,
used to quip that Barth’s one response to all theological questions was “Jesus
Christ!” Though a quip, to a great degree, it is true and certainly a way of
summarizing Barth’s concern here: the change that occurs in the individual “has
its ground and commencement in the history of Jesus Christ” (17) and nowhere
else. How? By the act of the Holy Spirit (27), or put another way, through
baptism with the Holy Spirit.
This
act—the baptism of the Holy Spirit—is not identical with water baptism, as
Barth makes clear, even though the Spirit’s baptism necessarily connects us to
other believers (31-32). This is expanded in the reflections on a “distinctive
fellow-humanity” (36ff.) Barth now moves to the specifics of baptism with
water, which he is clear to state, is not excluded, but indeed made possible
and demanded by baptism with the Holy Spirit (41).
After
seven points on the biblical practice of water baptism, Barth unfolds three key
items that fill the majority (over 75%) of this part-volume: (I) the basic,
(II) the goal and (III) the meaning of Christian baptism (50).
In
his first major subsection of this paragraph, Barth seeks to discover the basis of baptism, “Why is it practiced,
as we have seen, semper ubique et ab
omnibus in the New Testament Church?” (50). Though one can point to Matthew
28:19 as the key biblical text (50f.), it is actually John’s baptism of Jesus
at the Jordan that forms the basis for water baptism (54ff.) To my mind, this
is a somewhat unusual way to find the basis for Christian baptism, but
naturally Barth offers an extended exegesis (61-7) to offer a biblical basis
for his point. Essentially, Jesus was baptized from below, with water, at the
same time as he was baptized from above, with the Holy Spirit (65).
This
act demonstrated both Jesus’s submission to the will of God and his commission
as Son of God and Messiah (see 68), who will, as we’ll see in the next
subsection, baptizes with the Holy Spirit (70). That then is the goal of baptism. Baptism with water
looks forward to baptism with the Holy Spirit (71), that is, God’s
reconciliation in Jesus Christ through the Spirit (72). (Does one here begin to
notice a move that will lead Barth to criticize infant baptism? Namely, that
baptism is a “human work of basic confession” in which the church associates
themselves “with those who are newly joining it” [73]). It is also, and
decisively, different from John’s baptism for several reasons (75ff.), even if
they are the same baptism (85) and that John’s baptism looked forward, baptism
in Jesus’s name was in fulfillment.
The
third subsection, on the meaning of
baptism, fills over half of CD IV/4 (100ff.). It does not take many pages (at
least given his loquaciousness) for Barth to consider the meaning of mysterion and sacramentum (108-9), then all the passages in the New Testament
(111-27) for him to make the case that baptism is not a “mystery or sacrament”
as it has been understood theologically. In other words, baptism “is not to be
understood as a divine work or word of grace which purifies man and renews him”
(128). Its character is “as a true and genuine human action which responds to
the divine act and word” (128). In that light, it is no surprise that baptism
is not “part of the traditional and normative pattern of human life” because it
must be seen by the candidate “in the obedience of faith” (133). Baptism, for
Barth, is an act of obedience and hope. “They say Yes to this Yes [that is, God’s
“valid, absolutely trustworthy and victorious Yes”]” (161).
A
major part of this subsection begins with Barth’s turning to infant baptism,
which either starts on page 164 with a short treatment of the history of
baptismal practice (i.e., it has departed from the time of the New Testament
Church when both baptized and baptizer knew what they were doing), or on 165
with the actual words “Infant baptism… is, in the words of the Heidelberg Catechism (Qu. 74) the
baptism of young children, usually the newly born infants of Christian parents,
i.e., of those who in some way belong to the Church by their own confession.”
It has not been mentioned so far, but its rejection has been presupposed by the
fact that the baptized must make a decision of faith (166). For this reason, Barth
can speak of the “astonishing possibility of infant baptism” (166). He notes
that infant baptism does not appear materially a part of the wider theology of
the Reformers (169-70), and that both Luther and Calvin quickly move to carps
and invectives toward their opponents on this front (170-1), even invoking
Satan’s direct work in their attacks on infant baptism. Barth finds no
exegetical basis for infant baptism, e.g., in Mark 19:13f where Jesus welcomes
little children, or in Acts 2:39 where the promise if also for your children
(179-83). These are simply not texts about infant baptism, nor applicable for
its practice. Notably—at least to this reviewer—he asserts that infant baptism
is—with a nod back to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s 1937 phrase from The Cost of Discipleship—“cheap grace”
(183). (Later, on page 209, Barth calls it “the grace that is disposable” and
that “does not help, save, or sustain.”) Why? Infant baptism takes away the
need for God’s liberation, their decision (184). Note that I am leaving Barth’s
apposition because human decision and God’s will are inextricably linked for
him. What of vicarious faith, as in the paralytic from Mark 2 that was brought
to Jesus by his friends? This form of faith is only for others to be “liberated
to believe for ourselves” (186). And subsequently, Barth makes this (for him)
lapidary statement (one has to record these whenever they occur in his
loquacious expositions): “But the personal faith of the candidate is
indispensable to baptism” (186). Soon enough, and after responding to some
final reasons often presented for infant baptism, Barth declares, “Enough of
this tiresome matter! Theology can and should do no more than advise the Church”
(194). Even though infant baptism is “an ancient ecclesiastical error” (ibid.).
Starting
on page 195, Barth returns to the theme of hope (as the twin to obedience,
which he dealt with earlier and which led him to the pages on infant baptism).
One has the sense that “the horse is smelling the barn,” and that Barth is
moving swiftly toward the close of this part-volume. Indeed there are under
twenty pages left. Christians don’t look back to baptism (Luther’s reditus ad baptistum), but forward in
mission from it (“conversion and progressio baptizati,” 202). Baptism is
“obedience to God’s command performed in freedom” and “a grateful response to
God’s efficacious and manifest grace” (202). Even in spite of baptism
“compromised and denied” (204), the Church does not look in hope to itself, but
to Jesus Christ (206-7). And thus, “The final thing to be said is that the
meaning of the act of baptism consists in this prayer [of hope]” (209). He
finishes with an exposition of 1 Peter 3:21, “a description not unlike a definition”:
baptism is “not as the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but as the
request to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ”
(210-13). This exegetical excursus is both formally and materially fitting for
Barth’s theology, a theology based ultimately on Scripture’s witness as the
Word of God. Since it is also a call to ethical action, or a “good conscience”
(syneideseos agathos), this is also a
fitting end to this part-volume on the “ethics of reconciliation.” Thus Karl Barth
offers—and one senses a bit hastily—the final words of his magisterial
thirty-six year project, Church Dogmatics.
Overall,
this commentator is led to write that, as in all of Barth’s Church Dogmatics, the reader comes away
having learned a great deal more about baptism—especially its history, its
practice, and the theological controversies surrounding it. It’s hard to deny that
Barth has done his homework. At the same time, there is the hint of some
frustration that goaded him into publishing this unfinished part-volume, which,
as he noted in the introduction, that goad is the practice of infant baptism.
One might be tempted to read the entire part-volume as one long introduction to—and
then briefer exposition of—his support for adult baptism only. But that seems a
bit dismissive of the intensive work Barth does with biblical and theological
traditions and of the broader theology of baptism he presents.
Above
all, the issue for Barth is that baptism must be a decisive change; baptism in
the Holy Spirit leads to true Christian conversion. I, for one, have not yet
decided to change my baptismal practice. Nevertheless, I can attest, as a
Presbyterian pastor who has performed and seen many infant baptisms, that the
primary concern of the congregation is the cuteness of the baby or toddler, and
rarely an obedient and hopeful response to the Gospel. And I don’t take this as
tangential, but as a signal that there is nothing the infants are doing to signal
baptism as a response of faith on their part. Barth has done yeoman’s service
as regards—even in, by his normal standards—this brief treatment of the doctrine
of baptism. In the west, we live in a culture that has little use for cultural
Christianity, or perhaps better, Christendom, of the kind that Barth cavils
against and that is implied in the practice of infant baptism. (Since everyone
in this culture is a Christian, whether they decide to be or not, why not
baptize infants?) I am not certain how many minds he has changed since 1967
(and he writes on page 194 that had “only the faintest hope” that his
theological reflections would be heeded), but I would advocate that the
Christian community should still read CD IV/4 almost fifty years after its
publication… because we are increasingly in post-Christendom even more than
when it was first written. The question remains: As western culture continues to
slip from the clutches of the Christian Church, will we be able to release this
form of Christendom—or at least discuss letting it loose—or will it cling to
infant baptism as a vestige of our diminishing power?
