Kerry's loft

Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics (CD) is without doubt the most significant work of Christian theology of the 20th century. But at 8 million words and more than 12,000 pages in English translation, it’s a bit hard to wrap one’s head around. For the CD, “volume” is a tricky word. In the photo of the Princeton Study Edition at right, CD vol. 1 on Revelation is shown in beige covers; CD vol. 2 on God is orange; CD vol. 3 on creation is pink; CD vol. 4 on reconciliation is blue; with indices and helps in the final green cover. (Cf. my previous post on the structure of the CD.)

Marty Folsom (drmartyfolsom.com) is producing for Zondervan Academic a handy guide for each major “volume” of the CD. True to the title, Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics for Everyone, these guides enable readers to enjoy the kaleidoscope of the CD without getting lost or too overwhelmed to see the beauty of Barth’s vision. I highly recommend them for first-time readers, for non-theologians, for anyone. Marty has a real skill for inviting readers to enter into Barth’s rich paths through the deep forest of the mystery of God without losing sight of the forest for the trees. He is a Barth whisperer.

Marty is a true interdisciplinary scholar. One striking dimension of the books is Marty’s consistent concern throughout to show the applicability of theology to other disciplines. As part of this, he recruited a who’s who roster of scholars to write “very short essays” on the value of each CD volume for other fields. For example, there’s an essay by Jonathan Lett on “The Value of CD 3 for Science.” Each essay is titled “The Value of CD #[1, 2, 3, or 4] for… [Biblical Studies, Systematic Theology, Pastors, Mental Health, Spiritual Formation, Missions, the Arts, Science, etc].” These collections of essays are a remarkable endeavor in their own right, and they illustrate the generous hospitality of the author behind the books themselves.

Three volumes are already out, covering the first three volumes of the CD on the Word of God (CD 1), God (CD 2), and Creation (CD 3). Marty’s guide to Volume 4, on Reconciliation, will come out next year. Barth’s “volume” on Reconciliation is bound in ten blue volumes in the paperback edition shown above. Each of Mary’s books is a master class of compression, a succinct orientation and welcoming invitation. They are like enjoying a spell on the front porch before going inside for the extended family feast.

In a recent John H. Pickford Symposium, “Theology on Fire,” at Northwest College and Seminary, Marty presented “Karl Barth’s Gift to the Church,” a wonderful overview and sense of what these guidebooks are about. In the video, Marty’s talk begins at 0:04:30 and concludes at 1:10:00. Responses and discussion follow. One would be hard put to find a more accessible orientation to the entirety of Barth’s Church Dogmatics than this lecture! If you want more, check out Marty’s conversations about each volume published so far on the Onscript podcast: Vol 1 (Word); Vol 2 (God); and Vol 3 (Creation). Then read Marty’s books, and start looking for your own set of the CD.

You’ll want some bookmarks.

I’m grateful to Marty for inviting me to contribute the very short essay on science for volume 4. Reconciliation is not often taken into sufficient account when we think about science and religion. At more than 3,000 pages, Barth’s “volume” on Reconciliation seems like a tall order to expect the non-theologian interested in science and religion to read. But it’s worth it. Although I have only 1,200 words, my chief goal is to prompt scientists who are Christians to begin to think about integrating their theology and science, which is an almost inconceivable challenge. Not to provide answers, just to help them start wondering if it might be possible and perhaps wishing it were so, and therefore, to begin asking questions.

In what follows, I have posted some supplemental information which complements the essay as it appears in published format. The text below is not intended to be read on its own, apart from the printed essay. I incorporated some of this material in a presentation at the Loch Tay Torrance retreat in November 2025 (see paper here).

In CD 4, Barth integrates creation and reconciliation, so that creation (the subject of CD 3) is not interpreted in isolation apart from a holistic understanding of Christian belief. He also speaks of a second kind of integration: that between theology and the sciences. Barth spoke of the “integration” of great and little lights in CD 4.3.1 pp. 156-157; here’s a key sentence:

“The positive thing which takes place in the confrontation of the little lights of creation with the great light of its Creator is that they are not passed over or ignored, let alone destroyed or extinguished, but integrated in the great light.”

I think of each integration — of creation and reconciliation, and of theology and the other sciences — not as occurring on the same level, like two sides of a zipper, but as superimposed views, like binoculars or those old ViewMaster slides.

In elaborating on this challenge of integration, I wrote in the paper:

“The challenge of integration requires us to reflect carefully on how theological themes may apply to our work, without abrogating our fidelity to the practices of our scientific community. Indeed, theological themes have shaped science throughout its history. Three examples worth prolonged pondering are the cross and the mandate to enter into the suffering of creation in order to recover whatever has been marred in the fall; the Resurrection and the beauty of creation evidenced in the history of human anatomy; and the new creation and the rise of historical science in geology, biology, and cosmology (not to mention stories of human relationships with horses). From explorations in the history of science, Christian scientists may perhaps discern not a few clues for living as faithful members in both communities.”

At this point, the following paragraphs were cut from my original essay to get it down to the word limit:

Three historical examples prompt our own reflections about how the cross, Resurrection, and new creation may shape or intersect with our science:

1. Cross: The Plague and the Groaning of Creation

Jesus wept at the brokenness of creation, and in the cross he gathered into himself all of its pain and marring by evil.(17) The cross became the turning point, opening the way toward the new creation.(18) We who follow in the way of the cross now enter into the suffering of all creation. Contrary to Paley and most modern natural theology, what is, is not right. Nature at present is not normative, but in need of redemption. We see nature in light of the Cross. Romans 8:18-25 captures both our hope and our tension in living in the already and not yet of the redemption Jesus has won for us.(19) We join in the groaning of creation, with the first fruits of the Spirit, participating in the work of Jesus Christ, the Prophet, Priest, and King of Creation. In Christ, the whole creation will be liberated from its bondage to decay to share in the freedom of the children of God.

We see this theme in the history of science when Francis Bacon argued that just as faith is known by its works, so true knowledge must be known by its fruits: “not an opinion to be held, but a work to be done.”(20) Through the fruits of scientific inquiry, we seek to restore what was lost at the Fall, or at least to mitigate its harmful consequences.(21) This is not merely intellectual history, but has obvious practical implications for scientists. Bacon, like many, believed that cures for most or all diseases lay hidden in the natural resources of the world. It was part of the divine calling of physicians to find those cures, develop them, and then use them to care for others. Contrast the gulf between Bacon’s vision of the Christian mandate with Albert Camus, who sadly concluded that to fight the plague one must fight also against the god of nature. In contrast, Christian scientists have divine marching orders to fight the plague, to protect the environment, and to push back against evil wherever it impinges upon any aspect of God’s good creation, knowing that we are participating in the work of God which has triumphed in the cross and Resurrection and will be fully revealed in the new creation.(22) When we join in AIDS or COVID healthcare initiatives, work to recover from natural disasters such as the North Carolina floods or California wildfires, seek to mitigate the harmful effects of volcanic eruptions, droughts, earthquakes, or habitat destruction, we are participating in the redemptive suffering of Christ. Jesus weeps and the Spirit groans, as we work in Christ through the Spirit, not without hope.

2. Resurrection: Anatomy and the Beauty of Creation

We see one example of faith in the Resurrection applied to science in the study of human anatomy in the wake of its widespread disparagement in Roman culture. In the Middle Ages, universities revived the practice of human dissection which had been prohibited by the Romans due to ethical concerns and taboos about contact with the dead. Why were the Roman taboos broken? What caused such an immense cultural shift? While numerous factors were at play, we cannot ignore the effects of widespread belief in the Resurrection of Christ. The Resurrection transformed cultural attitudes toward the human body, creating a posture of triumphant confidence in the coming new creation. Apart from faith, it is difficult to comprehend either the development of human anatomy or the rise of the veneration of relics of the saints. Both alike reflected belief in the Resurrection. The confident investigations of human anatomists like Charles Estienne (1545) and Andreas Vesalius (1543) incorporated beautiful, artistic anatomical illustrations in their works.(23) In such art, going well beyond any merely utilitarian function, the Roman taboos are left far behind. The beauty of anatomical art proclaims that death has lost its sting. When Melanchthon reformed the curriculum of the Lutheran universities, he commended study of Vesalius as the most suitable replacement for Aristotle. Human anatomy took its place in undergraduate study, the culmination of a cultural transformation echoing the Resurrection and anticipating the new creation.(24) While many cultures and traditions affirm the goodness and beauty of creation, this example illustrates how the Resurrection does so in spades.

3. New Creation: The Historical Sciences and the Future of Creation

We see faith in the new creation applied to science whenever historical perspectives on nature arise. For Barth, the story from creation to new creation manifests divine freedom to love in covenant faithfulness. Barth helps us apprehend that natural science works under a criterion of love, anticipating the new creation, working not only toward the restoration of all things, but also toward their eschatological fulfillment in the love of Christ.(25) We groan in hope for more than a restoration of what was lost. We groan for a consummation that transfigures creation.(26)

To return to Bacon, in The Great Instauration (1620), Bacon wrote that love compels the scientist more than the quest for power.(27) Although Bacon was not always consistent, he urged the pursuit of scientific knowledge in order to love and serve others, to anticipate the loving purposes that will be fulfilled in the new creation.

In contrast, pagan perspectives of time tended to be cyclical, a deterministic wheel of fate and fortune driven by a combination of chance and necessity in which only the universal matters. For Christians, belief in the entire sweep of covenant history, centered on the cross, Resurrection, and consummation, meant that there is more to temporal succession than endless cycles of fatalistic events.(28)

The biblical vision of redemption and future consummation provided geologists, naturalists, and cosmologists with an invitation to explore changes in the heavens and the Earth over time. When science was liberated from purely necessitarian and cyclical thinking, the results were profound. The first fruits of this transformation were expressed in geohistory and then evolutionary biology, even before the field theories of Maxwell and Einstein and the Big Bang cosmology of LeMaître and Hubble. The rise of the historical sciences in geology, biology, and cosmology is one of the most exciting stories of modern science and goes to the heart of a Christian influence upon the natural sciences.(29) In contrast to an eternal or unchanging universe, might nature herself have a history? If so, where has creation come from? Where will it all lead? Does it lead to a future in which the love of God achieves his purposes for creation? In this hope, the Christian scientist may anticipate the new creation and act as if it is already here in the already and not yet of our present time.

Finally, as scientists and creation workers we are called to see our work being accomplished through the Spirit and not through our own autonomous efforts.(30) The new creation is a fully Trinitarian act, involving the cross, Resurrection, and parousia of Christ and the work of the Spirit between the times. The new creation does not arise ex nihilo, but from the resurrection of the old. As the Spirit hovers over the waters, the scientist and creation worker are already tending the new creation arising hiddenly within and beneath the old.(31)

Through science and various other forms of creation work, we express gratitude and love for what God has made as we pledge ourselves in hope for its future. The veterinarian gives voice to the horse’s praise. Through the geologist, the very rocks cry out. The astronomer gives voice to the heaven’s praise. For all eternity, the river biologist will give voice to the fish and algae’s praise. For Barth, we are sent out for the sake of the world, the cosmos, and by implication, for the rocks, stars, horses, birds, fish, and algae.(32) Here and now, science is one of the ways of loving the creation that God loves. Through natural science and creation work, we are participating in the mission of God.

In the new creation, when full redemption has come, most of us probably imagine that there will be work for theologians, pastors, musicians and poets. But what about scientists and creation workers? Will geologists have work to do in the new Earth? Will we still need veterinarians and those who care for animals? Physicians, ecologists, gardeners, and farmers? Bird watchers and astronomers? Creation workers of all kinds?

(The printed essay then resumes from this point and concludes with some wonderful quotes from Barth, Bertrand Russell, and Thomas F. Torrance.)

———–

Notes

(17) CD 4.1 p. 231: “On that one day of suffering of that One there took place the comprehensive turning in the history of all creation—with all that this involves.” Or, CD 4.1 p. 311: “Where are the tears wiped away, and no more death, the pain removed, the sorrow stilled, the hurt healed, not to speak of the silencing of the groaning of non-human creation?” Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus wept for all creation. All the more so did he weep for all creation on the cross. CD 4.2 p. 293.

(18) CD 4.1 p. 231: “He is the righteousness which dwells in the new heaven and the new earth (2 Pet. 3:13)…. We wait for Him when, placed in Him and with Him at this turning-point of the times, we wait for this new heaven and new earth…. It made His day—the day of the divine judgment—the great day of atonement, the day of the dawn of a new heaven and a new earth, the birthday of a new man.”

(19) “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” (Romans 8:18-25 NRSV). Cf. Barth: “This must be the starting-point for all the detailed questions to which we can only allude in the present context. Wherever man exercises his lordship over the animal, and especially across every hunting lodge, abattoir and vivisection chamber, there should be written in letters of fire the words of St. Paul in Rom. 8:18f. (relevant, as I see it, in spite of A. Schlatter) concerning the “earnest expectation” (ἀποκαραδοκία) of the creature—for what?—for the “manifestation of the children of God,” and therefore for the liberation of those who now keep them imprisoned and even despatch them from life to death. The creature has become subject to ματαιότης (vanity), not ἐκοῦσα (willingly), nor according to its own destiny, but because of man, its subjugator. And it, too, is determined for liberation from the δουλεία τῆς φθοράς (bondage of corruption) together with the liberation of the children of God, so that for the moment it groans and cries with us in the birth-pangs of a new aeon.” CD 3.4.3, p. 355.

(20) Francis Bacon, The Great Instauration (1620), p. 16. See Charles Webster, The Great Instauration: Science, Medicine, and Reform, 1626-1660 (London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd., 1975) and Peter Harrison, The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

(21) This criterion sets definite limits on the utilitarian ambition of his unfortunately better-known phrase, “the effecting of all things possible,” as he put it in New Atlantis (1626).

(22) This is not intellectual theory removed from experience; I once asked a dear biologist friend whether he could justify, on the basis of his ecological pantheism, cutting down a tree to keep his son warm on a cold night, even if their survival depended upon it. After a long moment of silent deliberation, he answered that, rationally, he could not. Neither Camus’ existentialism nor my friend’s ecological pantheism offer a humane answer for medicine in a time of pandemic, for the environmental crisis, or for the problem of evil.

(23) Charles Estienne, De dissectione partium corporis humani (Paris, 1545) and Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica (Basel, 1543).

(24) Caroline Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200-1336 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995) and Sachiko Kusukawa, The Transformation of Natural Philosophy: The Case of Philip Melanchthon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

(25) The Direction of the Son CD 4.2 p. 293: “They are surrounded by the ἀποκαραδοκία (sufferings of the present time), the earnest expectation, of all creation, of the whole non-Christian world which does not yet know of the atonement accomplished for it in Jesus Christ, a world which as Paul saw it seems to have included all creatures, even the non-human.” … “In this history God Himself is at work in His own most proper cause—the cause in which it is a matter of the purpose and meaning of all creation and the attainment of His will with it.” And The Praise of Works KD IV.2 p. 660: “It is, of course, a work which embraces all creation, heaven and earth and all that therein is.” And The Basis of Love CD 4.2 p. 853: “For what does it mean when we are told in Col. 1:12f. that the Father has set us in the kingdom of ‘the Son of his love’; the same Son who is described in v. 15f. as ‘the firstborn of all creation,’ in whom, by whom and to whom all things in heaven and earth were created, who was before all things and in whom all things consist?” And The Basis of Love CD 4.2 p. 853: “It needs only the proclamation that it has taken place, and the final revelation of its meaning and significance for all creation in all the developments and dimensions of its temporal existence.”

(26) The Task of the Community CD 4.3.2 p. 910: “He is in the deepest sense the reformation, i.e., not merely the restoration but the disclosure or manifestation of the purpose and glory of all creation.”

(27) “Lastly, I would address one general admonition to all; that they consider what are the true ends of knowledge, and that they seek it not either for pleasure of the mind, or for contention, or for superiority to others, or for profit, or fame, or power, or any of these inferior things; but for the benefit and use of life, and that they perfect and govern it in charity. For it was from lust of power that the angels fell, from lust of knowledge that man fell; but of charity there can be no excess, neither did angel or man ever come in danger by it.” Francis Bacon, The Great Instauration, 1620. “Instauration” refers to the future restoration of all things.

(28) The doctrine of creatio ex nihilo was an outworking of the Incarnation.

(29) The literature on the rise of the historical sciences is vast. For a general background on divine freedom in nature and the history of nature, one might begin with Margaret J. Osler, Divine Will and the Mechanical Philosophy: Gassendi and Descartes on Contingency and Necessity in the Created World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). For the specific example of geology, which arose first, begin with Martin J. S. Rudwick, Bursting the Limits of Time: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005) and Martin J. S. Rudwick, Worlds Before Adam: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Reform (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008).

(30) We “walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:4 NRSV). The Promise of the Spirit KD IV.3.1 p. 317: “Why is it that we and all creatures have still a long way to go to the home to which we belong, to the time when we shall enjoy our eternal life on the new earth and under the new heaven, to the investing of our corruptibility with incorruption?” … “He is marching from its beginning in the revelation of His life to the end of His not yet accomplished revelation of the life of all men and all creation as enclosed in His life, of their life as the new creation on a new earth and under a new heaven.”

(31) Union with Christ entails that the kind of New Creation we are contemplating begins as a re-creation from within space and time. Just as in the Incarnation, Jesus transformed human nature from within, so in the same way, we participate in the Resurrection of Christ as the Spirit is now working to heal, re-order, and transform creation from within. In one sense, the re-ordering of creation comes from outside, as this re-engineering is not the emergence of something Nature could achieve on its own. But in a more profound sense, the re-creation comes from within, for God is creating not from nothing, ex nihilo, but re-creating through the risen humanity of Jesus Christ. Jesus and the Spirit are transforming us into the Firstfruits, the beginnings, the advance party, of the New Creation (compare James 1:18). The transformation through Christ in the Spirit is a creature-affirming, personalizing process, which establishes rather than diminishes the creature. He is not transforming us with a heavy hand, by decree or law, nor dehumanizing us in the process. It is not an imposition of power from above, but a re-creation of order from within. Grace in action is re-ordering our world, gently, patiently, from the bottom up, from the inside out. And although we groan together yearning for the full future redemption, the Firstfruits of His Resurrection spill over from the individual Christian and the Christian community to the rest of creation.

(32) CD 4.3.2 p. 872. If we love someone, we will long for a future in which they will experience a fullness of well being, and we will want them to live forever in that dynamic condition of well-being.

(33) CD 4.3.2, pp. 811-812. Emphasis added. See also the “Transfiguration of Creation” icon created by Aidan Hart for Point Loma Nazarene University, San Diego, on display since October 2025 in the lobby of the university’s Ryan Library.

(34) Bertrand Russell, “A Free Man’s Worship,” Why I am not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1957), pp. 104-116. “A Free Man’s Worship” was first published in The Independent Review 1 (December, 1903): 415-424.

(35) Thomas F. Torrance, Space, Time and Resurrection (Edinburgh: Handsel Press, 1976), p. 105.

To conclude a paragraph asserting that “the gospel of reconciliation enlarges our perspective with the new creation,” I make what will seem to many as an outrageous statement: “Nothing in science makes sense except in light of the cross, Resurrection, and new creation.” The footnote reads: “I make this provocative affirmation in the spirit of Theodosius Dobzhansky, ‘Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution,’ The American Biology Teacher 35, no. 3 (1973): 125-129. Dobzhansky (a practicing Christian) obviously did not mean that nothing in biology was ever understood before the rise of 20th-century evolutionary theories.” If I were not already well over my word-limit, I might have added a clarification along the lines of something like this: Just as the theory of evolution establishes integrating dimensions of depth and relation among all the disparate aspects of biology which cannot be unseen once they are disclosed in all their coherence and beauty, so the gospel of reconciliation and the new creation, once seen, cannot be unseen, because of the astonishing new depth and unexpected dimensions its hopeful perspective provides the Christian scientist. The Christian scientist who fails to practice science in light of reconciliation and the new creation is missing out in a way analogous to the biologist working before 1859 without a relational understanding of the history of life. (At this point, the essay moves on to the “almost inconceivable challenge” of integration, asking: “What does this mean for the scientist and creation worker today?”)

The few words of this post and my published essay barely scratch the surface of the value of Barth’s CD 4 for science. These abbreviated reflections come from my own personal vantage point as a historian of science and a lifelong student of science (bio). In the history of science, plenty of attention has been devoted to science and religion, but not so much to Barth. When I began graduate study at the University of Oklahoma in the Department of the History of Science, the venerable professor teaching my first seminar shook his finger at us, admonishing that to understand the Scientific Revolution we all must read Augustine’s City of God and Calvin’s Institutes. I agreed, and did so. But the same is true for Barth. Reading Nein! is not enough; I’ve benefitted greatly from diving deeper into Barth’s Church Dogmatics and now recommend it to any graduate student interested in science and religion. Barth’s rejection of natural theology by no means implies his irrelevance for a theology of nature or for the natural sciences.

Quotations from the Church Dogmatics were omitted from the published essay except in a few cases. Contact me if you want to read the fuller draft before the quotations were deleted.