Word Gems: God: Dr. Karl Barth

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over [the animals and the earth.] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.(Gen. 1: 26, 27, KJV)

“He created them male and female.” This is the interpretation immediately given to the sentence, “God created man.” [Man is the only] one to be created in genuine confrontation with God … it is he first and alone who is created “in the image” and “in the likeness” of God… [God] willed the existence of a being which in all its non-deity and therefore its differentiation can be a real partner; which is capable of action and responsibility to him; to which his own divine form of life is not alien; which in a creaturely repetition, as a copy and imitation, can be a bearer of this form of life. Man was created as this being. But the divine form of life, repeated in the man created by Him, consists in that which is the obvious aim of the “Let us.” In God’s own being and sphere there is a counterpart: a genuine and harmonious self-encounter and self-discovery; a free existence and cooperation; an open confrontation and reciprocity.

Man is the repetition of this divine form of life; its copy and reflection. He is this first in the fact that he is a counterpart of God, the encounter in God Himself being copied and imitated in God’s relation to man. But he is it also in the fact that he is himself the counterpart of his fellows and has in them a counterpart, the coexistence and cooperation in God Himself being repeated in the relation of man to man. Thus the tertium comparationis, the analogy between God and man, is simply the existence of the I and the Thou in confrontation.

Editor’s note: Wikipedia: Tertium comparationis: Latin: "the third [part] of the comparison." The essential quality that two things which are being compared have in common. It is the point of comparison which prompted the author of the comparison in question to liken someone or something to someone or something else in the first place. If a comparison visualizes an action, state, quality, object, or a person by means of a parallel which is drawn to a different entity, the two things which are being compared do not necessarily have to be identical. However, they must possess at least one quality in common.

Editor's note: Barth is saying that the tertium comparationis, the point in common between God and man, is the self-questioning, the search, the discovery process. Eliminated, according to Barth, God would no longer be God, man, no longer man. The sweet romantic conflict between the yin-yang male and female would represent God's own internal quest for truth!

This is first constitutive for God, and then for man created by God. To remove it is tantamount to removing the divine from God as well as the human from man. On neither side can it be thought away. That it is God’s divine and man’s human form of life is revealed in the creation of man. God wills and creates man when He wills and creates the being between which and Himself there exists this tertium comparationis, this analogy; the analogy of free differentiation and relation. In this way He wills and creates man as a partner who is capable of entering into covenant-relationship with Himself – for all the disparity in and therefore the differentiation between man as a creature and his Creator.

Editor’s note: This would mean, in terms of microcosm, that male and female, as copies of God, despite their “free differentiation,” were made to enter into relationship with each other. For what purpose? To further that essentially divine attribute, that quintessential human trait, that of, helping each other, by way of their sweet romantic clash, to reach higher states of being and awareness! This coming together – God to man, and male to female – is hinted at in the Hebrew word “gluing,” translated as “cleaving,” one to the other, and is used to describe (1) man in relationship to God and (2) male to female, romantic partners.

The grace of man’s creation … consists not only in the fact that He sets man in fellowship with Himself as a being existing in free differentiation and relationship, but in the fact that He has actually created him in fellowship with Himself in order that in this natural fellowship He may further speak and act with him.

It is striking, but incontestable, that in his description of the grace of God in this final and supreme act of creation, the biblical witness makes no reference at all to the peculiar intellectual and moral talents and possibilities of man, to his reason and its determination and exercise. It is not in something which distinguishes him from the beasts, but in that which formally he has in common with them; [namely] that God has created him male and female, that he is this being in differentiation and relationship, and therefore in natural fellowship with God.

The only thing that we are told about the creation of man, apart from the fact that it was accomplished … after the image of God, is that “God created them male and female.” Everything else that is said about man, namely, that he is to have dominion over the animal kingdom and the earth, that he is blessed in the powers of his species and the exercise of his lordship, and that he is to draw nourishment from the plants and trees, has reference to this plural: he is male and female.

Editor's note: This point of both male and female being addressed is supported by the Hebrew "the adam," - man with a definite article, man as title, man as representative of both male and female - a grammatical construction used exclusively in the first 3 chapters of Genesis.

And this plurality, this differentiation of sex, is something which formally he has in common with the beasts. What distinguishes him from the beasts? According to Gen 1 it is the fact that in the case of man the differentiation of sex is the only differentiation.

Editor’s note: The differentiation of male and female is not mentioned in reference to the other animals, only with man – seemingly, a point of emphasis, conspicuous by its absence elsewhere.

Man is not said to be created or to exist in groups or species, in races and peoples, etc. The only real differentiation and relationship is that of man to man [representative adam to representative adam], and in its original and most concrete form of man to woman and woman to man. Man is no more solitary than God. But as God is One, and He alone is God, so man as man is one and alone, and two only in the duality of his kind, i.e. in the duality of man and woman.

Editor’s note: Barth seems to be inferring something based upon what the text does not say. Only the human male and female are explicitly differentiated as such, which says to Barth that animals enjoy no such sacred individuality and will live a generalized, non-individualized existence within larger groups.

In this way he is a copy and imitation of God. In this way he repeats in his confrontation of God and himself the confrontation in God. In this way he is the special creature of God’s special grace. It is obviously the incomprehensible special grace of God that His singularity finds correspondence in a created singularity.

Editor’s note: Man, in the generic sense, copies God in that he is created as a singularity, a One Person, even though he is represented as both male and female.

That the grace of God has this particular form; that it is in the differentiation and relationship of man and woman, in the relation of sex, that there is this repetition, is an indication of the creatureliness of man – for this is something that he has in common with the beasts. But this creaturely differentiation and relationship is shown to be distinct and free, to reflect God’s image and to prove His special grace, by the fact that in this particular duality (i.e., to the exclusion of all others) he is alone among the beasts and the rest of creation, and that it is in this form of life and this alone, as man and woman, that he will continually stand before God, and in the form of his fellow that he will continually stand before himself.

Men are simply male and female. Whatever else they may be, it is only in this differentiation and relationship. This is the particular dignity ascribed to the sex relationship. It is wholly creaturely and common to man and beast. But as the only real principle of differentiation and relationship, as the only form not only of man’s confrontation of God but also of all intercourse between man and man … [and] woman and woman … it is the true humanum and therefore the true creaturely image of God...

Editor’s note: humanum = the true test of being human. Unlike earlier expositors who maintained that the image of God is something within, something that man possesses, Barth says that it is something that man is; and that the essential sign, the true marker, that makes one human is to be male or female. These Two are to be in relationship with God and with each other.

The fact that he was created man and woman will be the great paradigm of everything that is to take place between him and God, and also … between him and his fellows…

What are we to make of the divine plural in verse 26 ? The question is important because it not only says “Let us make man,” but then goes on to say expressly: “in our image, after our likeness,” so that what we mean by this “image” depends on our decision concerning the subject envisaged by the saga… “A special self-determination of God indicates the extraordinary event which is to follow” (G. Von Rad). Expositors are also unanimous that it cannot be interpreted merely as a formal expression of dignity… We cannot escape the conclusion that the saga thought in terms of a genuine plurality in the divine essence… [supporting verses are,] “Behold the man has become one of us” (Gen 3:22)… “Let us go down and confound their language” (Gen. 11:7)…

Editor’s note: Many traditionalist Bible commentators explain this plurality ("us") as a “divine entourage,” a “kingly or angelic advisory council.” This view might be possible in the later references, but how could mere advisors satisfy the words, “in our image, after our likeness”? Such interpretation is impossible for Gen. 1: 26, 27 as the antecedent, the archetypal figure, behind the creation of man, of necessity, must be divine, exalted, worthy to be copied and made subject of an immortal image, and no mere underling-advisor.

Further, it is to be noted that in the “Let us make man” we have to do with a concert of mind and act and action in the divine being itself and not merely between God and [mere advisory] non-divine beings… the image which in verse 26 is called “our” image is immediately afterwards (verse 27) expressly described as “His,” God’s image…

[There are those who desire to see a reference to the Trinity in the plurality of Gen. 1: 26, 27.] It may be objected that this statement is rather too explicit [said by Barth, whom, I believe, was a Trinitarian]. The saga definitely speaks of a genuine plurality in the divine being, but it does not actually say that it is a Trinity…

Editor’s note: I would say, it clearly says, that it is not a Trinity. Man is created as an “image,” a “likeness,” of the Creator and is expressed as a two-some, he and she, not a three-some, a he, she, and it.

Editor’s note: The doctrine of the Trinity is the proverbial mule designed by a committee that should have been a horse. It selectively appropriates certain scriptural images of God, at the expense of others, and builds uneasily upon this faulty artifice of conjecture – just as Dr. Marcus Borg and Father Benson warn against. For a thorough and proper refutation of the Trinity doctrine, read this book by Anthony Buzzard, an old professor of mine:

If we agree that we are to keep close to the wording and context of the passage [Editor note: what a curious and novel idea; that of honest interpretation of the text itself.] if we are to understand the divine likeness of man as expressed in verses 26 – 27, then – not without genuine astonishment at the diversity of man’s inventive genius …

Editor’s note: Allow me to translate Dr. Barth’s fine words here, regarding this "diversity": Some who explain these words are slippery. They will oil their way across the room to get to you. They will say anything, make any "diverse" claim with "inventive genius" that they think they can get away with in order to maintain their male-dominated power and control agenda.”

We shall have to reject a good deal that has been said in supposed exposition [i.e., these are propaganda pieces, dressed up as "supposed" scholarship], and decide for a path which is more direct [as opposed to the disingenuously crooked]…

Hegel explains that the divine likeness in man means that the genuine being of man in himself, the idea of man in his truth, is an element of God Himself in His eternal being, so that the nature of man is divine.

Editor's note: I like Hegel's thought. It means that to be truly human is to be divine.

According to A. E. Bieddermann it means that man “has the potency and determination, posited within him as an animal soul by the absolute spirit, to actualize a spiritual life which in form and in content is in harmony with the absolute spirituality of God and rooted in it, but which must exist independently in the element of the world outside God and therefore in a finite existence, thus reflecting as its own goal and end the eternal basis of the world process.”

Editor’s note: Bieddermann’s eloquence here is breathtakingly beautiful.

[Barth lists various other interpretations.] We might easily discuss which of these … is the finest or deepest or most serious. What we cannot discuss is which of them is the true explanation of Gen. 1: 26f. For it is obvious that their authors merely found the concept in the text and then proceeded to pure invention in accordance with the requirements of contemporary anthropology … and not according to … exegetical grounds ["exegetical" = taking from the text the intended meaning; not a private interpretation]…

We certainly come closer to the text … if with W. Vischer we take Gen. 1: 26f. to mean that in man God created the real counterpart to whom He could reveal Himself; “that man is the eye of the whole body of creation which God will cause to see His glory; that all creation aims at the confrontation of God and man and incontrovertible I-Thou relationship between Creator and creature … which is the true and sole motive of the cosmic process” …

Editor's note: Vischer is saying that the purpose of the creation, the entire universe, is to further the God-man relationship.

Can it be otherwise at this point? Is there any [other] justification for the apparatus set in motion for the creation of man: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” if, in harmony with all that follows, the aim is not already this confrontation, this differentiation and relationship… If we are to get at the root of the primary interest of the passage, we shall have to think further along the lines already indicated by W. Vischer.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Creation And Fall) offers us important help in this respect. He asks how God can see, recognize and discover Himself in his work. Obviously only if and to the extent that the thing created by Him resembles Him and is therefore free: not free in itself; not possessing a freedom which (as in a vacuum) is its own quality, activity, disposition and nature; but free for [God]… That God makes man free in this sense, and causes him to be free, is expressed in the fact that He created him as an earthly image of himself. “Man is distinguished by other creatures by the fact that God Himself is in him, that he is the image of God in which the free Creator sees Himself reflected…

Editor’s note: Bonhoeffer states the obvious for us, but profoundly so: God himself says that man is his copy! What does God see in man with which Divinity resonates?

“It is in the free creature that the Holy Spirit calls upon the Creator; uncreated freedom is worshipped by created freedom”! But this created freedom finds expression in the fact “that that which is created is related to something else created; that man is free for man.” It is expressed in a confrontation, conjunction and inter-relatedness of man as male and female… In this relationship which is absolutely given and posited there is revealed freedom and therefore the divine likeness. As God is free for man, so man is free for man…

Bonhoeffer comes closer to the text than Vischer … emphasizes the context of verse 27, where, with the threefold application of bara [Hebrew word for create], it is stated in a way that cannot be overlooked: “And God created man in his image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

Is it not astonishing that expositors again and again have ignored the definitive explanation given by the text itself, and, instead of reflecting on it, pursued all kinds of arbitrarily invented interpretations of imago Dei [the image of God]? – the more so when we remember that there is a detailed repetition of the biblical explanation in Gen. 5: 1, “In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; male and female created he them.”

Could anything be more obvious than to conclude from this clear indication that the image and likeness of the being created by God signifies existence in confrontation, i.e., in this confrontation, in this juxtaposition and conjunction of man and man, which is that of male and female, and then go on to ask against this background in what the original and prototype of the divine existence of the Creator consists?

“These two, male and female, are to Him ‘man’ because they are one before Him. Both are created in this divine image, so that the enjoyment of the divine felicity – to the extent that a creature was made capable of receiving it – was communicated to man as a married couple, filled by God and in God with mutual divine love, from which we may understand and conclude the high dignity of marriage.” (H. F. Kohlbrugge)

Editor’s note: The truly “married couple” - married souls, more than married bodies - reveals the "divine felicity." In some sense the romantic joy of true love reveals the hidden mind of God.

Is it that expositors were too tied to an anthropology which expected the description of a being in the divine likeness to take the form of a full description of the being of man, its structure, disposition, capacities, etc., and found it impossible to think that it could exist only in this differentiation and relationship?

But the text itself says that it consists in a differentiation and relationship between man and man [specifically, a male and female], and they ought to have kept to this point. Or did they perhaps find it too paltry, too banal, too simple, or even morally suspect, that the divine likeness of man should consist merely in his existence as man and woman?

But when it is twice there in almost definitive form ["twice"; i.e., in Gen. 1: 26, 27 and Gen. 5: 1,2], why did they not let themselves be constrained to consider it instead of speculating at large, and especially to make sure that the differentiation and relationship between man and woman is so unimportant or even disreputable as they were obviously inclined to accept?

Editor’s note: Barth's words, "even disreputable," point to expositors' own shame and guilt, their underlying framework of perception, which led them to view sex as "not nice." These troubled teachers, victims of their own lower-rung consciousness, have tried to impose their own distorted concepts of reality on the rest of us. However, "the adam" as male and female, the divine image, does not necessarily mean that a God of Plurality possesses sexual organs. It can be argued that mere physical sexuality links man and woman to the animal world, and that the locus of the true image of God - the Joy of true love - linking us to God, is something different, something psychological and spiritual.