Church Dogmatics, Vol. 3.4, Sections 55-56: The Doctrine of Creation, Study Edition 20 [20, 1 ed.] 0567261042 / 978-0567261045

Table of contents :
§ 55. Freedom for Life / 1. Respect for Life / 2. The Protection of Life / 3. The Active Life / § 56. Freedom in Limitation / 1. The Unique Opportunity / 2. Vocation / 3. Honour

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KARL BARTH CHURCH

DOGMATICS

VOLUME

III

THE DOCTRINE OF CREATION

S 55-56 THE COMMAND OF GOD AND THE CREATOR II

EDITED BY

G. W. BROMILEY T. F. TORRANCE

.~

t&t

clark

Translated by G. W. Bromiley,]. W. Edwards, O. Bussey, Harold Knight,]. R.J. Ehrlich, A. T. Mackey, T. H. L. Parker, H. A. Kennedy,J. Marks

K. S. Reid, R. H. Fuller,

Published by T&T Clark A Continuum Imprint The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE 1 7NX 80 Maiden Lane, Suite 704, New York, NY 10038 www.continuumbooks.com

Copyright

@

T&T Clark, 2009

Authorised translation of Karl Barth, Die Kirchliche Dogmatik III Copyright @ Theologischer Verlag Zurich, 1945-1951 All revisions to the original English translation and all translations @ Princeton Theological Seminary, 2009

of Greek, Latin and French

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Typeset by Interactive Sciences Ltd, Gloucester Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain by MPG Books Group

ISBN 10: 0567405451 ISBN 13: 9780567405456

CONTENTS S55-56

S 55.

S 56.

FREEDOM FOR LIFE l.

Respect

2. 3.

The

for Life

Protection

The Active

71 141

of Life

Life

FREEDOM IN LIMITATION

1. 2. 3.

The

Unique

232 261 312

Opportunity

Vocation Honour

v

[324J FREEDOM FOR LIFE As God the Creator calls man to Himself and turns him to his fellow-man, He orders him to honour his own life and that of every other man as a loan, and to secure it against all caprice, in order that it may be used in this service and in preparation for this service.

1.

RESPECT FOR LIFE

In this sub-title I am borrowing a concept which is adopted and worked out by Albert Schweitzer in the second part of his philosophy of civilisation (Kultur und Ethik, 1923, which is essentially a critical history of western ethics) as the "fundamental principle of ethics" and therefore the basis and the measure of all ethics. It cannot be accepted here in this broad sense. Schweitzer's ethics, as he himself describes it, is mystical. In spite of Schiller, life is for him, in its totality as our own life and that of others, "the supreme good," and therefore it is the highest and properly the only lawgiver,and therefore the criterion of all virtue. According to him the first and last word of all ethics is that life must be respected. Its sum is that to preserve and assist life is good, and to destroy and harm it evil (p. 239). It goes without saying that theological ethics cannot accept this. Where Schweitzer places life we see the command of God. Life cannot be for us a supreme principle at all, though it can be a sphere in relation to which ethics has to investigate the content and consequences of God's command. That life should be accepted, treated and preserved with respect is for the moment, however, a suitable formulation of the answer which we must give in this field from the first if not from every standpoint.

So far we have understood obedience to the command of God the Creator as man's freedom for himself and his freedom in the human community. God the Creator calls man to himself and therefore to worship, confession and prayer. He then turns him to his fellow-men and tells him what is and must be essential according to' His creative will (in the relation of husband and .wife and parents and children) or according to His fatherly disposition (in the relation of near and distant neighbours). Presupposing these first two dimensions of the command and keeping them constantly before our eyes, we now turn to a third. Obedience to the command of God the Creator is also quite simply man's freedom to exist as a living being of this particular, i.e., human structure. Though it might have seemed logical, we have taken good care not to speak first of this simple and obvious fact. That which constitutes man as man is, of course, his existence in the vertical dimension towards God and in the horizontal towards his fellow-men. Hence he is not first this creature or present as such. He is first for God and his fellow-man, and then and for this reason he 1

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exists as this being in accordance with his determination. And his obedience to the command of God must first and supremely be understood as his right action and conduct in relation to God and his fellow-men, and only then and on this basis as his true existence in human life rightly lived as such. But the command of God does have this third dimension in a very distinct form. As the being of man for God and with his fellow-men includes this particular human structure as a presupposition, so the freedom of man for God in the community includes the freedom for existence as this human creature. Man is also commanded to live, i.e., to live rightly according to the instruction of the command. He always lives, even as a man standing before God and linked to his fellow-men. He is always himself in these relationships. He is so as man, this man, involved as such in a whole complex movement and activity, in which he is of course claimed for God and his fellow-men, but which in itself and as such has its own distinctive content in face of the service of God and fellowship with others, and which by its nature can find only partial expression in movements and activity in the relationships to God and His fellows. If the command of God did not have this special third dimension in which it brings its order into this distinctive but very real and important sphere, we should obviously have here a kind of ethical vacuum in which man's action and abstention would be left to chance or caprice or its own law. In these circumstances his freedom for God and in fellowship would be singularly majestic but also singularly problematic and docetic, hovering over the dark abyss of his multi-coloured vital being rather as the strange, purposeless and inactive spirit of Elohim did over the waters of chaos in Gen. 12. Down below and in himself where so much necessarily or arbitrarily stirs and moves, where he desires and loathes, seeks and spurns, demands and does not demand so much that constantly and sometimes ardently interests and claims him, but cannot be rightly and fully viewed and comprehended and defined .from the standpoint of the service of God and fellowship with others because it is a matter of his psychophysical act of being as such, he would have a kind of refuge or holy place with an altar to which he could flee and horns to which he could cling. He would obviously choose, yet would also have no option but to exist there "privately," i.e., without the law,without the duty of obedience, as a neutral abandoned in some sense to chance and caprice. The command, however, as it demands obedience in the first two dimensions, lays hold on the man himself and therefore pierces into the sphere of his humanity as such and therefore into the act of his existence. God is gracious to the man himself, not primarily or exclusively in his relation to God and his fellow-men, but to the man who exists as such in these relations as a living creature created by Him and endowed with a definite structure. Hence his faith and his obedience would not be faith and obedience if, now that the command penetrates to himself, it could be denied or evaded as the command of his Father and Lord, of the God who is gracious to him. This command has a specific dimension in which it also shows itself to be the sanctification of his life as such, as the imperative summons to freedom 2

1.

Respect for Life

for human existence. It is In this dimension that we have now to become acquainted with it. Here we encoun ter the representatives of various tendencies in philosophical ethics which, according to the different aspects which they usually emphasise, we may more or less correctly describe as eudaemonistic, hedonistic, utilitarian, or, more relevantly, naturalistic or vitalistic ethics. Among them in modern times, Englishmen such asJ. S. Mill and Herbert Spencer, Frenchmen like Auguste Comte, Alfred Fouillee and Jean Marie Guyau, and the Germans F. Nietzsche, E. Haeckel and even Albert Schweitzer, have championed such types of ethics. In his initial bent Henri Bergson might also be classed with them, but this is not strictly possible because his natural philosophy did not assume any ethical form. The common elemen t in all these thinkers is their striving for a fundamen tal orien tation of ethics, for a concept of life. It matters little whether this was thought of more in terms of the physical life or the mental, more of the individual or the social, more of the happy or agreeable or the tragic and heroic, more of the will for life or respect for it. Everywhere life itself and as such is regarded as the actual ethical lord, teacher and master of man. As we have just remarked concerning Albert Schweitzer, we can only "encounter" the representatives of this view. In theological ethics the concept of life cannot be given this tyrannical, totalitarian function. But this does not mean that we should avoid it altogether. We cannot command the idealistic rigorism with which W. Herrmann tried to dismiss from ethics as mutely natural and therefore pre-moral the affirmation of the necessity and right of life. On the other hand, it was one of the advantages of the ethics of A. Schlatter, for which he has to thank his thorough independence of the prevailing Kantianism of his time, that in the fourth part of his book, under the peculiar title "Power," he could in his own way take up the ethical concern of the naturalists and bring out the consequences. Precisely when, unlike the naturalists, we understand the moral command str~ctlyand exclusively as that of the God who is also the Creator, we are forced to admit that the man addressed and claimed by Him does not begin at the point where he is distinguished from a purely natural creature. It is a matter of the whole man. We think of Col. 317: "And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus," and more explicitly 1 Cor. 1031: "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, and whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." Insistence on the separation of moral from natural volition and action-and therefore of natural from moral-means that there is no way to ward off the danger that, in so far as the life of man is below that point, however excellent the ethics above it, it is surrendered to a naturalistic ethics of opportunism and expediency. We have to understand the command in its critical and constructive relation to the real action of the real man which as such is alwayshis natural action as well. In all seriousness, therefore, we have to put the question of obedience in this field too.

But what is this simplest element in respect of which we have to ask concerning the command of God, namely, man's existence as such and therefore his life as man? We must first give a brief description and delineation of the sphere which we now enter. We do well to insist at once that even in this simplest thing we are not dealing with something given and known nor controllable and therefore directly knowable by man. Man assumes that he belongs to himself as he exists in his particularity as a human creature. And from this point he goes on to think that he even exercises a certain though limited power over other life as well, over that of his fellow-men, that of animals and plants and the life generally in which he participates with his own life. But already the first presupposition on

3

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which everything else depends is too uncertain, in view of the unmistakeable and many-sided threat to which he himself is exposed, for him to suppose that human life really belongs to him and is thus in the strictest sense his "own." It is on this assumption, however, that he thinks that he can know of himself that he exists, and that he does so as a man; and that he therefore thinks that he can know what human life is, what it means to exist and live as a man, and therefore what life is generally. Yet he does not really know more than certain phenomena which indicate his existence, which seem to distinguish him a human being, and which continually characterise his existence as humanphenomena from which he thinks that he can conclude and know analogically that there is existence and life outside himself, and therefore life in general, and what it is. Even this noetic basis is far too insecure for theological ethics. Our own premises must be as follows. 1. As God addresses man as his Creator and Lord, He acknowledges and reveals, and it is clearly and decisively said to man by Him in a way which cat:lnot be missed but only accepted, that man exists, and that he does so as the creature distinct from Him. If man did not, he could not be the recipient of the Word of God which reaches and speaks to him and which he can hear. If he himself were God, it would not be God's Word as Creator and Lord that he may hear. God's Word as Creator and Lord constitutes as such his knowledge of the reality of his existence in its independence of that of God, and therefore his knowledge that in this reality and independence it does not belong to him because it has been entrusted to him through the free goodness of the One who addresses him. God alone is truly independent. He alone belongs wholly to Himself and lives in and by Himself. Man's creaturely existence as such is not his property; it is a loan. As such it must be held in trust. It is not, therefore, under the control of man. But in the broadest sense it is meant for the service of God. "Know that our God indeed is Lord, And for His glory hath us made, T'is wholly on ~is gracious Word, The life of every man is stayed." This is the simplest information that can be given concerning the fact and meaning of life. Nor is it the result of self-reflection on the part of man. It depends entirely on the fact that God addresses him. It derives from the Word of God as the Word of his Creator and Lord. And implicitly it is the information which is given concerning all other life and the reality and the meaning of life in general. 2. As God addresses man and therefore does not just deal high-handedly with him or rule and control him, as He claims his knowledge and action, He acknowledges and reveals him as a creature which, in virtue of the quickening Spirit who is always God's own Spirit, is in ineffaceable difference, inseparable unity and above all indestructible order, i.e., precedence and subordination, the soul of his body, a creature of perception, thought, desire and volition, a rational being (cf. C.D., III, 2, ~ 46). To exist as a man in this distinction of soul and body, but also in the unity of these two determinations, is to live in this order. The life-act of man is existence in this differentiated but self-enclosed 4

1.

Respect for Life

and self-disposed totality, in derivation and absolute dependence on the free, life-giving act of God Himself, conditioned and sustained always by the fact that God causes it to happen. It is in this sense that human existence is a loan and is to be held in trust. From its structure as the existence of a rational creature it is clear that it can be understood only as a loan. God alone is truly rational, knowing what He wills and willing what He knows. Creaturely reason as it characterises man's structure cannot as such try to be self-sufficient. And the guarantee that man may take himself seriously in this structure of his being and confidently use his reason is not to be found in the structure itself but in the fact that God addresses him as a rational creature, that He deals with him as such, that He calls him and expects to find in him hearing and obedience. The Word of God decides and reveals that man may never understand himself as merely physical, nor as merely psychical, nor in a mere juxtaposition or higher synthesis of these determinations, but that he must understand himself in this event of his existence as the soul of his body, that he should be in this event, and that this should be his particular human life. 3. As God addresses man, He acknowledges and reveals him as someone, a particular individual, this man. The Word of God not only presupposes a reality different from itself, a life-process, but many specific life-acts. It relates to them all, yet not to a mere totality, but to individual and unique rational creatures. It therefore constitutes as such man's knowledge of the independence of his particular existence in distinction from all other men or creatures. It addresses him in his own life. It holds him directly responsible for this loan and his treatment of it. It confirms him in the particularity of his creatureliness by claiming him in this particularity. This is one of the things bestowed upon him or rather lent to him as a creature. It is not that he possesses himself by being this particular man. The fact that he alone is this individual does not entitle him to make any claims. It is only the mode in which he may be the creature of God and a rational being. God alone is true and self-sufficient, and it is the goodness of God that this particularity, although not self-sufficient, may exist apart from Him in the creaturely world too. There is not the slightest reason, then, to construct or maintain in it a castle of defiance against God or even against other individual life in the creaturely world. Nor may man presume a true and final knowledge who and what he is in his particularity. God knows who and what he may be. God calls him by his name. It must satisfy him to be always the particular creature as which God addresses and thus acknowledges him, and to know himself as such. There can be no doubt, however, that the Word of God, spoken by the divine I to the human Thou, claims the supremely particular hearing and obedience of this specific man, and thus reveals the individuality of his being and life. 4. As God addresses man, He acknowledges, and man is told by Him, that he exists in time, that he is engaged in a movement from a past through a present into a future. The Word of God confirms his life as a being in a succession of

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different moments. This means that it is a being both in constancy and mutability. In a flux of moments man is always identical with himself. But as such he passes through the ,flux of moments. The Word of God to him, whether understood as information, question or command, presupposes on the part of the one to whom it is spoken the capacity to hear, answer and obey, i.e., to be the same both before and after (e.g., both when the divine question is posed and the answer is given), and to be so both before and after (e.g., both when the command is issued and it is obeyed). It constitutes man's knowledge of the reality of the movement in which he exists, of the reality of the fact that his life is temporal, which also means that it is creaturely, and may be known as such by the fact that it is bound to time and can take place only in the succession of beginning and end which are its limits. Unlike the life of God, it is neither free nor external. It can be lived only because and as the life of God stands behind it as the true life, the basis and source of life, in which actuality and continuity, constancy and variability, eternity and time are one. Hence it can only be lived and not held fast or possessed. It can only become constantly real in virtue of the free action of the life-giving divine Spirit. It is life as a loan. Yet understood with this reservation and within these limits, it is genuine life and not a mere appearance, made knowable by the drama of man's encounter with the Word of God as real stability in real change and real change in real stability. 5. As God addresses man, it is decided, and man is reassured, that his life possesses a definite origin., He lives his life. He is the soul of his body. He is the living individual. He is the one who moves in time, constant yet changing. The Word of God is not spoken merely to a psycho-physical individual in time which is simply the functioning organ of another author or element in his movement, but to a subject who is himself at all points the author, accomplishing this movement freely, independently and spontaneously. The Word of God, demanding hearing and obedience, presupposes a productive subject, a being capable of making for himself a new beginning with his being, conduct and action (irrespective of his co-existence and connexion with other beings), of planning something new and his very own, corresponding to what he has heard from God and therefore achieved through obedience. The Word of God as it is spoken to man thus constitutes his knowledge of himself as such a free subject of his life. Otherwise what would be the sense of God speaking to him and not simply disposing of him? Speaking to him, God appeals to his independence. It is a creaturely and therefore not an absolute independence. It cannot in any sense compete with that of God. Hence we cannot say that his life is his own. Together with its independence, it belongs to the One who alone is truly independent. The fact that he himself may and should live his life is one of the things which have been entrusted to him and over which he has no ultimate control and must not try to usurp it. It is from the man who in all his freedom belongs to God that hearing and obedience are demanded. But the fact remains that, as it demands this from him, it discloses and reveals the fact that in his freedom he belongs to God. 6

1.

Respect for Life

6. Yet obviously we cannot fully describe what human existence and life are as such-for they cannot really be considered schematically-without recalling the twofold determination on which they are truly based and by which they are properly characterised as human. We first remember his determination for freedom before God. Life is lent to man under the determination for this freedom. We could not overlook its origin in any of our previous points. Recognisable as such in man's addressability by God, it is real, rational, individual and free existence moving in time as and because it is thus created by God, by the One who has and is all these things properly. Yet it is no less proper to its nature and character as human existence that this origin is also the goal. It does not derive from God in order that it may then have its aim, meaning and purpose in itself or another. It does so with a tendency to return to its place of origin. The Word of God reveals this too. As He addresses him, God calls man to Himself. How could He do this if man's path, as the existentialists imagine, were a random one, uncertain and confused in direction, or if its meaning, purpose and aim were in himself or something else? If God speaks in accordance with His creative will, addressing man concerning that for which He has determined human existence, this means that this existence as such is ordained by its Creator to give Him a hearing and obedience. It is thus from the very outset an existence orientated on His service and praise, on the search for Hun and the doing of His will. Life as such thus means to live for the One to whom it belongs and from whom it has been received as a loan. Life, human life, thus hastens as such towards freedom before God, and only per nefasENl, and never according to its own nature, can it depart from this direction or take the opposite one. We must accept the fact that, in respect of this natural direction of his life towards God, man is not its owner and lord. Together with everything else which determines and characterises his life, the fact that it is orientated on God is also and particularly God's creation and loan. But we can understand even human life as such only if we gather, not from speculation but from the event of its confrontation by the Word of God, that it too, without any co-operation of its own but by nature and from the very first, has this vertical direction. 7. The other equally original determination of human existence is that of freedom in fellowship. In every significant and characteristic point life is a possession lent to every man as such, to each in a different way, in a specific time and place, but the same gift to all. To be sure, it is not a collective act. The singularity as well as the spontaneity in which it may be lived militates against such a view. But even its singularity and spontaneity belong to the manner in which it is the same for all. And it is worth noting that these are the two points by which one man recognises another most surely, or at any rate impressively, as someone like himself, namely, by the fact that he is so definitely this man, ENl

wrongly

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S 55. Freedom for

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Life

and lives as man in this distinctive freedom. As he himself acts and reacts specifically and spontaneously as a rational creature, so does also the other. And as the other does, so does he. Human life obviously cannot be lived otherwise than as a life which by its very nature consists in solidarity with those who have also to live it in their own way as it is lent to them. The natural and historical relations in which he stands to them are only the concrete conditions in which this solidarity achieves form, and is visible, and becomes a problem, to him and them. They ensure that this solidarity will not be overlooked and forgotten. But the equality and interrelatedness of all human life consists in its essence and not primarily in these relations. We therefore do not base our knowledge of it on any supposition derived from analogies. They might be unreliable. They can also be evaded. But as God addresses man, He also speaks to him through the solidarity which exists between him and other men. What God says to him applies to him, but to him only as a creature that has others of his kind. For he says it to him as He who is the Creator of each and all men, at other times and places, has also addressed, who as such mutatis mutandisEN2, addresses and will address others with a different emphasis, content and commission. However differently and specifically He may thus address each individual, when addressed by Him each recognises himself in the other, and therefore necessarily, compulsorily and definitively, and again as a revelation of His creative will, as a disclosure of a determination which by its very nature is peculiar to human life. Thus the fact that man is determined for fellowship is very far from being an accident. From this standpoint, human life as such takes place with a view to freedom in fellowship and therefore in the interrelatedness of one man with the other who also in accordance with bis place and time can and must live it in all its singularity. Only per nejasEN3, and not according to its nature, could it break free from this interrelationship and be lived in opposition to it. Man's life is also to be understood in this respect as God's creation and loan. No power, no possibility of rebellion against God or other men, is given to the individual by the fact that there are so many like him. To the understanding of human life belongs also the insight guaranteed by the Word of God that, again without his own co-operation, it has by nature this horizontal direction. The question arises whether we ought to have an eighth point on the connexion or even the unity of human life with that of animals and plants and therefore with life generally. In this last and sublimest instance human life would then mean participation in an inclusive and perhaps even a universal life-act, and according to the current theology and philosophy this could be interpreted as the life-act of the created cosmos as such, or as one particular force in the cosmos ("spirit," world-soul, the principle of evolution or dialectical progress or something similar), or as the life-act of God Himself. The realm which we are endeavouring to define would then have its limit at the point where man thinks he recognises more or less closely a similar life to his own or something resembling it. And the ethical question would

EN2 EN3

allowing for differences wrongly

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Respect for Life

then have to be answered how ought he to conduct himself as a participant in this inclusive and perhaps even universal event of life. Now if we were following the way of free speculation, we might think ourselves summoned to think in this direction. But the basis on which we have drawn up our first seven points does not enable us to go on in this way to an eighth. We could no longer speak with the certainty which has been so far possible. For it cannot be maintained that the man addressed by God's Word was spoken to and must recognise himself as a participant in the life of animals and plants or in an almost universal life-act, however interpreted. He may be of the opinion that he should regard this self-understanding as the right one, but it derives from another source and independently of God's Word. He has certainly not gained this personal understanding from his encounter with this Word. For the Word of God is addressed to man. It is an event in his life that it addresses him. That man lives in the cosmos, that he is the neighbour of animals and in a wider sense also the neighbour of plants and their life and all creatures, that his life has something in common with theirs, is not denied in this event but-tacitlypresupposed. Yet it does not follow by any means that the Word is also addressed to all his neighbours in the cosmos in the same way as it is to man. It is not in any sense evident that there exists a corresponding event in what we consider to be their life. We dare not reject this possibility. But equally we dare not affirm it and base the understanding of our human life on this statement. For if through that event in our human life we undoubtedly receive instruction concerning our life and its nature, this is actually limited to our human life, so that strictly what we have to learn about life is in every point relevant with certainty to man alone. We may entertain beautiful and pious thoughts, based sometimes on sensible suppositions and observations, concerning the independent reality of animal and vegetable existence, its ration ality, its peculiarity, its relation to time, its spontaneity, its determination for God, its homogeneity with similar beings. But there is one thing we cannot say,namely, that man is addressed by God concerning this existence and its peculiarity, that he is given information about it by the Word of God. Man is not addressed concerning animal and vegetable life, nor life in general, but concerning his own human life. Even in the things which he has in common with animals and plants he is addressed concerning them as elements in human life and not elements in a more or less general life in which he merely participates. Again, we are investigating life as a realm in which the command of God is valid in a particular dimension and form. But the command concerns man and is relevant to his life. How can we know of a command that refers to the life of animals and plants and life generally? Such a command may exist in a hidden form. There is an infinite range of possible but unknown realities in the relation of Creator and creature. We may thus give free rein to our imagination in this field. But we must not maintain that we have any knowledge, namely, that we know a universal, all-inclusive command addressed to all creatures and therefore valid for us. This obviously involves an encroachment of naturalism and evolutionism which we have no reason to support. We shall thus content ourselves with the seven points in which we have tried to define the realm of life. We are concerned with theological ethics and therefore we must adhere to the life which is recognisable in the event of God's Word. And we are concerned with theological ethics and therefore we must adhere to the life in relation to which we are asked concerning the good. From both these standpoints we maintain that the sphere of life with which we are concerned here is that of human life. In so doing we do not negate what may also be reality as life of a different and strange type. Neither do we negate the connexion of our human life with this other strange life. Above all, we do not negate the fact of the close relation of animal life with human life. Indeed, it is very forcibly brought out in the biblical saga by the creation of the animal and of man on the same day. We shall have to remember that with human life as our real problem, we must take seriously the problem of animals (and in a

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~ 55. Freedomfor Life certain sense even of plants) as a marginal problem of ethics. We merely deny that any instruction concerning what we have to understand as life, i.e., life under the command of God, is to be expected or received from what we think we know as animal or vegetable life, or from the notion of a life-act in general. We merely state that we have no certain knowledge of the unity of life either in us or outside us. We merely reserve for ourselves the freedom to keep to what we know of life on sure authority.

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We thus presuppose the concept of life as defined in this way. When we ask concerning the command of God on this presupposition, it is tempting to begin with the following consideration. Does not the command always demand specific human decisions, attitudes and acts? Yet, however these actions might be conditioned and directed, there can be no doubt that none of them can become an event without the substratum of a specific lifeact. That man is obedient always includes in itself the fact that he lives. Therefore the command, whatever its form, always contains the demand that he should live in his acts, affirming and willing his existence, and doing what is necessary and possible for its preservation and continuation. In some sense it always contains, even if imperceptibly, incidentally or anonymously, the imperative: Thou shalt will to live. A too primitive understanding of this imperative is averted by th,e fact that to the concept of life-the life that man should will to live-there necessarily belongs his orientation on God and the solidarity in which he is linked with all men. Could we not maintain, then, that wherever and however man is confronted with the Word of God he is always summoned to life in this embracing and solemn sense of the term? But this tempting and to some extent useful consideration is subject to three difficuIties. 1. Human life naturally includes orientation on God and solidarity with similar life. But it is not exhausted by what it is under these supreme and (for its humanity) decisive determinations. According to our first five points, it is always as well a real creaturely existence, psychical and physical by nature and of independent character, a movement in time in the originality of a free act. What is the meaning of the imperative: Thou shalt live, in relation to this other element in life which cannot be directly comprehended under these supreme determinations? 2. The command of God naturally summons man, in accordance with the two supreme determinations of his life, to freedom before God and freedom in fellowship with his fellow-men. But is this all, even from the standpoint of the command? Does it not also summon man to the freedom of existence? And does it really do this only anonymously, in, with and under its other commands? Does not the imperative: Thou shalt will to live, have also its own note, even though it is always heard in harmony? And does not the concept of a corresponding and therefore a good life have also, beyond the right relation of man to God and his fellow-men, a specific content in view of which we must speak of a third specific dimension and form of the command? Is not a special

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freedom and obedience indicated to man by the fact that as man, as this real, rational, individual, temporal, spontaneously acting and reacting creature, he is called to freedom before God and in fellowship? 3. Is it really true that the command of God in all cases and circumstances contains the imperative that man should will to live? Must not this imperative in some cases at least be formulated in what is from the literal standpoint a very paradoxical sense if it is really to be understood as the command of God? Understood in its most literal sense, it is hardly an unconditional and absolutely valid imperative which as such has necessarily to be included in every form of the divine command. Precisely as the command of God, does it not have a restricted validity, since the God who commands is not only the Lord of life but also the Lord of death? Is it really so unthinkable that, when his command summons man to freedom before Him and fellowship with his fellowmen, it might include a very different imperative, or this imperative in its most paradoxical formulation, to the effect that man should not will to live unconditionally, to spare his life, to preserve it from death, but that he should rather will to stake and surrender it, and perhaps be prepared to die? According to Mk. 835 he may save it in so doing, whereas he would lose it ifhe tried to save it. Is not the peculiarity of the freedom for existence to which man is summoned by God discernible in the fact it might also mean freedom from existence, a superior freedom as opposed to the necessity of having to live and to will to live, the superior freedom of man to be able also to surrender his life, and give it back to God, for the sake of his orientation on God and solidarity with his fellow-men? If these are real difficulties, the only useful point in that consideration is that there are forms of the divine command in which there is also silently and implicitly contained the demand that in order to do what he has been ordered man should will and affirm his life. Yet even where it is only an accompanying presupposition this demand still has its own content and character. And it is again the command of God which is issued when it has now independently the content and character of this demand. And again, to the extent that implicitly or explicitly it is the command of God, it is always limited. It is not an absolutely valid demand for the affirmation of life, for the "will to live," but one that exists for the time being, until abrogated, and within the framework of the presuppositions and intentions with which God causes it to be issued. Mter this clarification we may attempt a general formulation. The freedom for life to which man is summoned by the command of God is the freedom to treat as a loan both the life of all men with his own and his own with that of all men. The following points must be made in elucidation of this very general proposition. First, our purpose in this third section is to understand the extent to which there also exists as such under the command a freedom, i.e., an obedience in respect of human existence. 11

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Secondly, by man's existence, according to the seventh point in our definition of the concept, there is always to be understood both his own.Iife and the similar life of all others. An abstraction between the two is out of the question, as is also an identity, because singularity and spontaneity are just as much essential for the life of man as his solidarity with the life of others. We therefore define the relation between these two elements as a co-existence. With his own life man lives that of all men, and with that of all his own. Under the command of God it is a matter of freedom, i.e., obedience for existence under this twofold definition. Thirdly, by the command it is also placed in the light of a divine decree. The fact that he lives, and that he does so in this individuality of a rational creature, at this time, in this particular orientation on God and solidarity with others, is something which man cannot create of himself. Nor can he maintain it effectively. Nor can he refashion it when he is no longer alive. He can only accept and live it in the way and within the limits in which it is allotted him by God. He may live by the life-giving Spirit of God. Fourthly, it is not by an obscure fate or neutral decree, but in receipt of a divine benefit, that he is "alive." The command of God, claiming him as a living person, inscribes upon his heart the fact that, coming wholly from God, it is always (whether recognised or not) an advantage, a good and worthwhile thing, for everyone to be alive. It is not wholly an advantage nor absolutely good and worthwhile. "My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever" (Ps. 7326), and: "Thy lovingkindness is better than life" (Ps. 633). But within its limits it is good and worthwhile because the one great opportunity of meeting God and rejoicing in his praise. It must itself be understood-and this anew every morning-as a divine miracle of grace to receive this opportunity of recognising and experiencing the grace of God, and therefore to continue to live. This is true no matter what we may see or not see in life of meaning, hope, success, happiness or even goodness. And wherever we have to deal with a living soul, we have to do eo ipSOEN4 with this divine miracle of grace. Fifthly, the blessing of life is a divine loan unmerited by man. It must always be regarded as a divine act of trust that man may live. And the basic- ethical question in this respect is how man will respond to the trust shown him in the fact that he may do so. Will he recognise and appreciate the value of the gift? Will he realise that it is given him in order that he may use, enjoy and make it fruitful? Will he consider that he does not possess it for ever nor even for long, that used or unused it will melt in his hands and one day will be finally past? Will he handle it as a treasure which does not even belong to him, of which he can dispose only according to the purpose of the One from whom he has it, and therefore not thoughtlessly nor arbitrarily, but remembering that he must finally give an account of his stewardship and use? EN4

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Sixthly, and finally, it is a matter of his treatment of this loan. We have seen that it also includes man's spontaneity. But this means his freedom to take on responsibilities, to make resolutions, to carry out decisions, to adopt modes of action, to execute deeds. Human life is to .be lived as man's activity, not to be endured and withstood as a mere happening. It is to be accepted and accomplished anew every day. For this purpose, and with the corresponding ability, it is given him as a loan. This is in the widest sense the particular form and dimension of the divine com~and in respect of human existence as such. We do not see the wood for the trees if we do not see that from the point of view of Christian theology we have here a particular problem. It is posed by the simple fact that of His own good-pleasure, beyond which we cannot go and which we cannot explain, He who in the biblical message is called God is obviously not interested in the totality of things and beings created by Him, nor in specific beings within this totality, but in man, in this being, who in his distinctive unity of soul and body is in his own time alive through his spirit, in his individuality and freedom and with his orientation on God and solidarity with his kind. Man is obviously at issue when the eternal God, the Creator and Lord of heaven and earth, turns to the creature and is graciously engaged in its preservation and overruling, making Himself the companion of its history. Man is obviously the object of the decree which precedes all existence, of God's eternal election of grace. Man is obviously the partner in the covenant whose institution and fulfilment provides the meaning and centre of all creaturely existence. The fact that God Himself did not become identical with the totality, or with specific beings within it, but with man when He became flesh inJesus Christ, is the execution of His choice and His decree and the fulfilment of His covenant at the heart and as the meaning of all creaturely existence. God stands by man. To be sure, a cause is at issue in their mutual dealings. God's name is to be hallowed in creation, His kingdom of heaven to come on earth, His will to be done in earth as it is in heaven. The deliverance of man is thus to be accomplished. The unmerited goodness and mercy of God are to come upon him. He is to be called to His service, to be summoned to faith in Him, love for Him and hope in Hun. But all this is not to be seen and thought of merely in its reality and objectivity, as if man himselfwere merely a kind of great X on which God wills to magnify His glory and which is itself to be glorified. Certainly, this is at stake in God's dealings of revelation and grace. But man is not merely the tabula rasaEN5 on which everything that has been factually and objectively decreed will be inscribed. For in all this it is a particular fact of revelation and grace that man is the central factor, that God deals with him in all these things, that in them all he may be the aim, the object and the partner of the divine action. Everything that God does is glorious, gracious, powerful, unfathomably high and deep, but it is worthy of special consideration that man is so dear and EN5

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The creation story in Gen. 1 right up to the creation of man is one long account of how God ensured and fashioned this space for man to live on earth. The story of the covenant described in the Old Testament, in indissoluble unity with what takes place and is prepared in it from the strictly spiritual standpoint, is also the history of Israel's conquest of the land by the will of God and its settling in the land by the same faithfulness and goodness-each "under his vine and under his fig-tree." Jesus Christ Himself allowed and commanded His disciples-even before all the other petitions which are materially so much more important and urgent-to pray also for their daily bread. And strikingly the "signs and wonders" by which He attested the kingdom of God come to earth were nearly all genuine aids to life in the simplest sense of the term. Indeed the Old and New Testaments generally have an extraordinary amount to say about such things as man's dwelling, food, drink and sleep, labour and rest, health and sickness, in short about his life and its limitation by death; nor are these statements incidental only, nor overshadowed by the greater and more decisive matters at issue.

We do not forget that the biblical message is concerned with the eternal life of man. In this, God's glory is to be triumphantly and man's salvation fully and definitively manifested. And as distinct from this life it will be eternal in the fact that it is not only lent to man but also given to him as an enduring and inalienable possession, as everlasting life. But even in this new mode it will still be life, and indeed human life. Ifit is the case that man is to enter into this his new life by the resurrection of the dead, if this entrance and transition take place as this corruptible puts on incorruption and this mortal immortality (1 Cor. 1553), then this eschatological aspect, the limitation of this life by the eternal, does not signify a devaluation but, when it is correctly understood, a proper evaluation even of this corruptible and mortal life. Even in eternal life, however this is to be understood, it will still be a matter of this present temporallife; even in that given life it will still be a matter of this life which is lent. Not even remotely will it then seem as if God has caused man to live this life in vain or as if this life has now perished. The tenet that God holds by man, and therefore in incomprehensible factuality takes a most intimate interest in his puny, transitory and infinitely threatened existence, will not then be called in question. But if this tenet is valid, it is not only not arbitrary but necessary from the standpoint of Christian theology to investigate the range of the divine command for this human existence, and to ask what is meant by freedom, i.e., obedience in this respect. Where there is a particular Gospel, there is also a particular Law.Where God is gracious in a particular way,He wills to sanctify in

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a particular way.Where a particular purpose of God emerges, there must also be a particular willingness and readiness on the part of man to correspond. But a particular good will of God is in fact revealed in the fact that little man with his existence may in the biblical message stand directly before God and in the centre of all things and occurrence. It is revealed finally and decisively in the fact that the Word became flesh. We now turn to the specific theme of this first sub-section-respect for life. Those who handle life as a divine loan will above all treat it with respect. Respect is man's astonishment, humility and awe at a fact in which he meets something superior-majesty, dignity, holiness, a mystery which compels him to withdraw and keep his distance, to handle it modestly, circumspectly and carefully. It is the respicereEN6 of an object in face of which his attitude cannot be left to chance or preference or even clever assessment, but which requires an attitude that is particularly appropriate and authoritatively demanded. This compulsion does not derive from life itself and as such. Life does not itself create this respect. The command of God creates respect for it. When man in faith in God's Word and promise realises how God from eternity has maintained and loved him in his little life, and what He has done for him in time, in this knowledge of human life he is faced by a majestic, dignified and holy fact. In human life itself he meets something superior. He is thus summoned to respect because the living God has distinguished it in this way and taken it to Himself. We may confidently say that the birth of Jesus Christ as such is the revelation of the command as that of respect for life. This reveals the eternal election and love of God. This unmistakeably differentiates human life from everything that is and is done in heaven and earth. This gives it even in the most doubtful form the character of something singular, unique, unrepeatable and irreplaceable. This decides that it is an advantage and something good and worthwhile to be as man. This characterises life as the incomparable and non-recurrent opportunity to praise God. And therefore this makes it an object of respect. It is really surprising that the Christian Church and Christian theology have not long ago urged more energetically the importance for ethics of so constituent a part of the New Testament message as the fact of the incarnation, instead of resorting, in the vital question why man and human life are to be respected, to all kinds of general religious expressions and to the assertions of non-Christian humanism. The assurances of the latter that the value of human life rests on a law of nature and reason sound quite well. But on this basis they are extremely insubstantial, and it is clear that nature and reason can alwaysbe used to prove something very different from respect for man. They also have the disadvantage that by "human life" they understand either his very one-sided intellectual existence, "the infinite value of the human soul," on the one side, or his equally one-sided material existence and prosperity on the other. They have the further drawback of always being bound up with illusory over-estimations of his goods, abilities and achievements which can only prove detrimental to the respect which ought really to be paid. And somewhere there obviously lurks EN6

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the ambiguity that, although reference is made to man, humanity, the dignity of man etc., it is not really man himself who is intended but all sorts of things, ideas, advances and aims which in effect man has only to serve, for which he has only to let himself be used, and for the sake of which he can at any moment be dropped and sacrificed. In contrast to every other, the respect of life which becomes a command in the recognition of the union of God with humanity in Jesus Christ has an incomparable power and width. For in this recognition it is really commanded with the authority of God Himself and therefore in such a way that there can be no question whatever of disregard as an alternative. Intellectualistic and materialistic one-sidedness in answer to the question what human existence is all about is thus excluded by the grounding of the command in this recognition because the human life in question, the life of the man Jesus, cannot be divided into a psychical or physical but compels us to offer the respect demanded by God to the whole man in his ordered unity of soul and body. The usual over-estimations of man and human nature are also excluded, because the distinction of human existence brought about inJesus Christ is to be seen wholly as grace and therefore only in humility. And finally on the basis of this recognition there can be no question of man's life being secretly honoured again as only the vehicle and exponent of an idea or cause superimposed upon him. For human life itself and as such is seen in the person of the man Jesus to be the matter about which God is concerned and therefore man must also be concerned in His service. In respect of the recognition of the command in the sense which now occupies us the Christian Church and Christian theology have an incomparable weight to throw into the scales. They and they alone know exactly why and in what sense respect for life is demanQed from us, and demanded in such a way that there can be no evasions or misunderstandings.

But what does respect for life mean? We have spoken of astonishment, humility, awe, modesty, circumspection and carefulness. Application must now be made to our particular theme. What matters is not something but someone, the real man before God and among his fellows, his individual psycho-physical existence, his movement in time, his freedom, his orientation on God and solidarity with others. What matters is that everyone should treat his existence and that of every other human being with respect. For it belongs to God. It is His loan and blessing. And it may be seen to be this in the fact that God Himself has so unequivocally and completely acknowledged it in Jesus Christ. What, then, can be the meaning of respect in relation to this object? First, it obviously means an adoption of the distance proper in face of a mystery. It is a mystery that I am, and others too, in this human structure and individuality in which we recognise one another as of the same kind, each in his time and freedom, each in his vertical and horizontal orientation. This is indeed an incomprehensible and in relation to ourselves intangible fact, inexhaustible in its factuality and depth and constantly adapted to give us pause. Those who do not know respicereEN7 in face of it, those who are not startled and do not feel insignificant and incompetent in its presence, those who think they can understand and master and control it, do not know what obedience is. All human life as such is surrounded by a particular solemnity. This is not the solemnity of the divine, nor of the ultimate end of man. Life is only human EN7

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and therefore created, and eternity as the divinely decreed destiny of man is only an allotted future. But within these limits it is a mystery emphasised and absolutely distinguished by God Himself. As such it must always be honoured with new wonder. Every single point to be observed and pondered is in its own way equally marvellous-and everything is equally marvellous in every human existence. First, then, we have simply to perceive this, and once we have done so we have not at any price to relinquish or even to lose sight of this perception. We must be awake to this need to keep our distance, and always be wakeful as we do so. But a mere theoretical and aesthetic wonder is not enough. On the contrary, the theoretical and aesthetic wonder which rightly understood forms the presupposition for everything else, must itself have a practical character if it is to be the required respect. And this means that human life must be affirmed and willed by man. We hasten to add that it must be affirmed and willed as his own with that of others and that of others with his own. Egoism and altruism are false antitheses when the question is that of the required will to live. My own life can no more claim my respect than that of others, but neither can that of others. Although they are not the same, but each distinct, the homogeneity and solidarity of all human life is indissoluble. But what is the will to live understood in this sense? Obviously, because to life there also belongs the freedom of this will, it is determination and readiness for action in the direction of its confirmation. That we should spontaneously perceive and affirm the reception of life as a divine loan in its character as a favour shown, a possession entrusted and an opportunity offered to us, is obviously what is expected of us as those who possess it, who are alive. But if this perception and confirmation is our act, it must consist in our making of our life the use prescribed by its nature as seen in these points. What is important is that according to the measure and within the limits of his individuality, and in the time granted to him, each should exist-always in orientation on God and solidarity with others-as this rational creature, attentively, unreservedly and loyally confessing his human existence in willing responsibility to the One to whom he owes it. We cannot live in obedience accidentally, irresolutely, without plan or responsibility. We cannot in obedience let ourselves go or be driven. We cannot and must not seriously tire of life. For it is always an offer waiting for man's will, determination and readiness for action. And it is to be noted that this is real respect for life. In this form as the will to live it is more than passive speculation in face of its mystery. It is the respect which its mystery demands. We really see it as the mystery it is in the fact that we will to live it and accept it responsibly. A life which is not affirmed and willed, which is irresolute, irresponsible and inactive, is necessarily a life without mystery. And against the constant threat of egoism, there is always the safeguard and corrective of recollection that the real human life is the one which is lived in orientation on God and co-ordination with others. The last is particularly important from the practical standpoint. The will to live which is the form of respect for life will always be

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distinguishable from an inhuman and irreverent will to live contrary to the command, by the fact that it considers the existence and life of others together with its own, and its own together with that of others. But having considered and said this, we must also show that the commanded respect for life includes an awareness of its limitations. We have already mentioned these. We refer to the creaturely and the eschatological limitations. These cannot diminish respect for life, much less abrogate it. But it is necessarily modified and characterised by the fact that the life to which it is paid has these limitations. As the reverence commanded of man it is not limitless. As such it has within itself its own limitation. Its limitation is the will of God the Creator Himself who commands it, and the horizon which is set for man by the same God with his determination for eternal life. Life is no second God, and therefore the respect due to it cannot rival the reverence owed to God. On the contrary, it is limited by that which God will have from the man who is elected and called by Him. For the life of man belongs to Him. He has granted it to him as a loan. And He decides in what its right use should consist. He also decrees and decides in His command in what man's will to live should at any moment consist or not, and how far it should go or not go as such. And what God will have of man is not simply that he should will to live for himself and in co-existence with others. God can also will to restrict man's will to live for himself and in co-existence with others. He can weaken, break and finally destroy it. He actually does this. And when He does, obedience may not be withheld from Him. As Creator and Lord of life, He has also the right to will and do this, and if He does, then He knows well why it must be so, and in this too He is man's gracious Father. In relation to man, He has much more in mind than what man can see here and now in the fulfilment of his life-act. He has determined him for eternal life, for the life which one day will finally be given him. He is leading him through this life to the other. The respect for life commanded by Him cannot then be made by man a rigid principle, an absolute rule to be fulfilled according to rote. It can only try to assert and maintain itself as the will to live in the one sense understood by man, whether in relation to his own life or that of others. Respect for life, if it is obedience to God's command, will have regard for the free will of the One who has given life as a loan. It will not consist in an absolute will to live, but in a will to live which by God's decree and command, and by meditatio futurae vitaeEN8, may perhaps in many ways be weakened, broken, relativised and finally destroyed. Being prepared for this, it will move within its appointed limits. It can always be modest. And it will not on this account be any the less respect for life. It will be so in this modesty and in readiness for it. When we come to questions of detail, we shall see how important it is to remember this reservation, or rather this closer definition. Respect for life without this closer definition could be the principle of an idolatry which has nothing whatever to do with Christian obedience. EN8

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But this reservation must now be strictly and sharply qualified. This inwardly necessary relativisation of what is required of us as respect for life, this recollection of the freedom of the controlling and commanding God and of eternal life as the limitation of this present life, must not be forgotten for a single moment. But the application of this reservation, the reference to it and the corresponding modesty, cannot have more than the character of an ultima ratioEN9, an exceptional case. They arise only on the frontiers of life and therefore of the respect due to it. Hence it is not true that respect for life is alternately commanded and then not commanded us. Neither is it true that alongside the sphere of this respect there is a sphere in which it is not normative, or only partially so. However much what we understand by this respect and therefore by the commanded will to live is limited and relativised by God's free will and man's determination for a future life, this relativisation never means that man is released from this respect. The one God, who is of course the Lord of life and death, the Giver of this life and that which is to come, will in all circumstances and in every conceivable modification demand respect for life. He will never give man liberty to take another view of life, whether his own or that of others. Indifference, wantonness, arbitrariness or anything else opposed to respect cannot even be considered as a commanded or even a permitted attitude. Even the way to these frontiers-the frontiers where respect for life and the will to live can assume in practice very strange and paradoxical forms, where in relation to one's own life and that of others it can only be a matter of that relativised, weakened, broken and even destroyed will to live-will always be a long one which we must take thoughtfully and conscientiously, continually asking and testing whether that ultima ratio really applies. The frontiers must not be arbitrarily advanced in any spirit of frivolity or pedantry; they can be only reached in obedience and then respected as such. Recollection of the freedom and the superior wisdom, goodness and controlling power of God, and recollection of the future life, cannot then form a pretext or excuse for attitudes and modes of action in which man may actually evade what is commanded within these limits. They are frontiers which are necessarily set by God, and cannot be claimed as emancipations of man. This will be best understood by those who do not treat respect for life as a principle set up by man. Even on these frontiers they will not see a relaxation of the command or exception to the rule, but only a relaxation of that which they think they should understand and offer as obedience when they accept it as a summons to the will to live. Even here there will be required of them a new and deeper understanding of the will to live, which ultima ratione can now take the form of a broken and even destroyed will to live, and, if it be the will of God, must necessarily do so. Yet ifit is an obedient and not a frivolous will, ifit is not wantoness and self-will, it must always be the will to live, and therefore ENg

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the practical form of respect for life. The importance of this consideration will be appreciated when we turn to the detailed questions in which the command of respect for life as the command of God must be master, lawgiver and judge. The explicit biblical form of the command is the "Thou shalt not kill" of the Decalogue (Ex. 2013, Deut. 517), which even in the New Testament is often referred to as one of the great commandments of the Old Testament Law. What is demanded as respect for life is very clearly expressed in this formula. Human life must be considered as given by God for a specific purpose and set under His special protection, and therefore it must be treated with holy awe. We may note already the clear-cut reason for this command in Gen. 96: "For in the image of God made he man." Both in form and sense this Old Testament command is impressive by reason of the very fact that it has a purely negative and therefore a purely defensive character. Man may not be the murderer of man. Respect for life is thus described from its opposite pole. Luther (in his Greater Catechism) has stated its content as follows: "God then comes forward as a friendly Father, interposes Himself and wills the quarrel to be settled, that no misfortune may result and one destroy the other. And therefore He alwayswills that everyone should be protected, liberated and secured (pacatum et defensum esse contendit) in face of all outrage and violence, making this commandment a defensive wall, fortress and rampart (murum arcem, asylum et propugnaculum) for the neighbour, that no one may cause him physical harm or suffering."

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We shall have to speak in the second sub-section of the way in which human life is protected by this commandment as such, namely, against arbitrary and therefore wicked extinction. But this protective aspect obviously implies the positive fact that according to God's command it may and should be lived as human life. It implies a willingness to let the light shine whose wilful extinction it seeks to prevent. And we shall better understand the negation expressed in this command if we first turn our attention to the positive fact which, although not expressed, is undoubtedly contained in it. In correspondence with its psycho-physical structure, human life is always first a life of impulses. And it is in relation to this determination that we must first ask concerning the meaning of respect or the will to live in the sense of the divine command. What man wills and does and refrains from doing stands always in a nearer or remoter connexion with "hunger and love," with the requirements of metabolism and the impulses of sexuality. And because we cannot overlook the fact that we spend at least a third of our short life asleep, and for better or worse are forced to do so, the need of rest must be described as the third of what are usually called these "primitive" impulses. Can there be any question at all of respect here, or of the will fashioned by it, or should ethics perhaps be allowed to close its eyes to at least these lowest forms of human life? The trouble is that these lower instincts are so terribly energetic and often so noticeable and influential in higher spheres. We cannot, therefore, overlook the fact that in his impulsive life, whether in lower or higher 20

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spheres, man is man and is to be addressed as such. The instincts undoubtedly belong to the animal element in human life, namely, to that which it has in common with the animals. But this does not mean that in so far as it is an impulsive life, it could and should be lived in animal fashion. Respect is already due to it in this regard as human life. And therefore, in so far as respect is due to it, the important thing even in regard to these animal components is to live it humanly, i.e., not in the form of an automatic process, but in the form of a physical process guided and governed by the soul as awakened by the divine pneumaEN10, and therefore in the form of freely chosen and executed decisions. Man's impulsive life is not to be honoured as such, nor is the will to live present, if man is only driven by these impulses and cannot also watch over them simultaneously and control them according to his own volition or nonvolition as the case may be. To have true right and dignity the human-animal instincts must not claim independent right and dignity. They must not be exercised absolutely but only in coordination with the rational actions of the human soul; not neutrally and generally but as shaped by human individuality; not imperiously but in the power of human spontaneity; not abstractly and autonomously but in relation to man's natural orientation on God and solidarity with his fellow-men. Those who live excessively,following in the steps of the drunken Lucullus or the sensualist Casanova or the legendary seven sleepers, and allowing themselves to be led by their instincts as supposed "men of the world" instead of really living, are in truth very far from giving to the impulsive life that which is its due. For the strange thing is that if a man refuses to live humanly and therefore responsibly in this respect, he does not live the life of an animal but of a sub-animal. The animal has an instinct by which it knows its needs and it obeys its impulses so far as they are necessary to the satisfaction of these needs. Man has no such instinct. Its place should be taken by the free individual use of reason and responsibility to God and his fellow-men. If he fails in this, if he allows free rein to his impulses, if he does not know, as he ought to know, when he has had sufficient and what he should desire, the result is, not only if he goes too far, but even with the first apparently harmless step, that he passes quickly through that which is genuinely animal to those hypertrophies of satisfaction, to that indulging and essentiallyjoyless desire for indulgence, to those aberrations and perversities of the impulsive life, of which the animal is quite incapable with its peaceful and satisfied eating and drinking, its peaceful mating and its contented slumber. In respect of his instinctive life man's only choice is either to be human or simply to be foolish. Animals are alwaysanimal But they are never foolish. We should not draw comparisons with them when we speak of human disorders in this sphere.

Man's impulsive life is free, and corresponds to the command of God, to the precise extent that, measured by all the criteria mentioned, it is human. It not only may but should be lived within these limits. For the animal impulses are not given to man simply to be suppressed. Life demands, indeed God creates for it, respect even in its form as impulsive life. It wills, albeit under watchful supervision, guidance and control, to be lived and not denied. In saying this, ENIO

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we do not set up an unconditional norm. For we have seen that the respect due to life, to what we think we should regard as our life, cannot be an absolute respect. How, then, can the impulsive life, in all its immeasurable meaning and scope, demand absolute respect? God alone knows our life, even our instinctive life, in such a way as to be able to control it absolutely. Serious, and sometimes radical restrictions, renunciations, abstentions and sacrifices may well be demanded from us by His decrees and commands in the whole field of our impulsive life. But conditional respect is due to this life too, so that it can claim validity within those limits and until a clear command to the contrary is heard from the One who really knows and rules it. If we try to deny it this validity at any point, we must ask at least whether it is really because of this superior counter-command and not just our own caprice. We must ask whether the selfdenial we desire to exercise is not perhaps more necessary in other spheres than that of the instinctive life. (There are "fleshly lusts" which are far more gross and dangerous than the animal ones of which we usually think in the first instance.) We must ask whether we practise self-denial in this sphere voluntarily, and therefore gladly, and not in the form of suppression and distortion or for the purpose of self-righteousness. And as a general rule it may be stated that we should demand it only of ourselves and never fundamentally and generally of others. In contrast to every restrictive law in this sphere, the conditional norm has the advantage that man's animal impulses are also given their rights. This is no less certain than the further fact that the conditional norm may not be played off against the concrete command of God if the latter requires a restriction of these rights, or what we think we should maintain as these rights. Asceticism

in the form of a partial or complete

needs in question ponding

can already become

renunciation

of the gratification

as a means of disciplining

of the

the corres-

impulses, perhaps also for the sake of the higher necessities of life, and above all for

the sake of one's neighbours. suppression. should

a command

respect

concrete impossible,

In such cases it has nothing

If after honestly facing all those questions

whatever

to do with illegitimate

we think it demanded

of us, others

and accept our view and not try to deflect us from it. We are also right in

cases to summon is the contracting

others

to the same view. Rather

of agreements

more

doubtful,

and mutual understandings

in the rule of an order or society or house which makes rather

though

not

by whole groups as

problematical

the necessity,

voluntariness and sincerity of the individual. But this is quite impossible when those who (openly or secretly) do not practise it for themselves demand it from others. We think of the renunciations which, possibly within the framework of Christian institutions and charities, some Christians in comfortable circumstances think they require of others. We also think of

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the sacrifices which those of the so-called "higher" social classes would never think of applying to themselves but for many years demanded and expected as self-evident from the so-called "lower" classes (and this with more or less genuine moral zeal and often enough with the support of the Church). In these cases hypocrisy is obviously at work. And where those who resist these demands are driven to rebellion, and take measures to improve their position and attain equality, it is a two-fold hypocrisy to try to denounce a divinely imposed

renunciation.

Where

someone

22

this as revolt against

who is well fed himself

tries to inflict

1.

Respect for Life

hunger upon others, and makes out that it is their duty to suffer hunger, God takes the side of the hungry, and He and not they will be the first to see that they are satisfied.

Respect for life means then, especially when it is a matter of others and not ourselves, to admit that the animal impulses should be given their rights within their essential limitations and until there is a clear command to the contrary. It means daily mercy and resolute justice to all human life, which in this simplest sense stands always under the threat of being cut short. It consists in granting to the other the same as one grants to oneself, and indeed in a readiness to grant him also that which one can and must renounce oneself. How do I know whether the other can and must also do without it? That he should dissipate his life I shall as little permit him as myself, but I shall surely allow him to live. That all may do this, the command of God makes each fundamentally responsible for the other. The same biblical message in which it is absolutely clear that man does not live by bread alone, by the satisfaction of his animal needs and exercise of his corresponding impulses, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God (Mt. 44), also makes it perfectly plain that God grants and gives man his bread, that man can ask Him for it, that he can win it for himself by the labour of his hands, that he who has it ought to break and share it with him who has not and that God will in any case continue to give it him. In the Old as well as in the New Testament it presents God as the Friend of the poor who go short and the avowed Enemy of those who deprive the poor of their bread or directly or indirectly withhold it from them. In this respect, it is full of a radiant humanitarianism, as one may see from the two stories of the feeding of the multitudes in the desert recorded in the three Synoptic Gospels and the central position given to the feeding of the five thousand in St.John. The Bible does not really forbid but encourages men to eat and drink and to live "naturally" in other respects. We must also not overlook the fact that in the New Testament even eternal life is so often represented as a meal to which according to Mt. 2210 the good as well as the evil are brought in from the streets without distinction, and that in the parable of poor Lazarus (Lk. 1619[_) the vitafuturaENll is described with shattering severity as the inexorable inversion of the relations between those who now enjoy themselves and those who have to do without. We can as little ignore what is said to man and therefore demanded of him in solemn recognition of the so-called primitive needs and impulses of his life, as the fact that in Col. 32 he is also called to seek those things which are above and not those on the earth, and in Col. 35: "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence and covetousness, which is idolatry: for which things' sake the wrath of God cometh." What this vEKpwoaTEEN12 (cf. Gal. 524; Rom. 813, 1314; 1 Pet. 11 2 ) does not mean is plainly enough said in the warning given a few verses before against the Colossian errors (Col. 223), viz., the E()EAo()PYJoK{a EN13 which pretends to be humility, an aePELS{a oWfLaTo~EN14 which honours nobody and nothing and, as is well noted, can only serve the 7TAYJOfLOV~ Tij~ oapK6~ENI5. A powerful ascetic can be a vessel of much greater wickedness than even the most indulgent. We cannot forget so easily that one may be a nonsmoker, abstainer and vegetarian, and yet be called Adolf Hitler. Anything on these lines is ENII ENl2 EN13 EN14 EN15

life to come mortify self-willed worship neglecting of the body satisfying of the flesh

[348]

S 55. Freedomfor Life certainly not meant by that vEKpWaU'TEEN16, but is no less excluded than the unrestricted and undirected swayof animal impulses. And if this is said here of the arbitrary negation of one's own impulsive life, how much more does it apply in the case of others! We can say unequivocally that allowances can and must be made for this life in the proper way and according to the command of its Creator. To think differently is not really to think spiritually, but in a refined way carnally.

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With regard to the impulsive life there is an abusus in excessuEN17 and an abusus in dejectuEN18• In both we have to do with perversion and sin. The path of obedience to the command of God is between this twofold abususEN19, not in the form of a compromise between these two opposite errors, nor in the form of their combination or mixture, but in the form of victory over both. Already in this respect it is the path of freedom for life. Man cannot wish either to surrender to the power of his impulsive life or to rid himself of it. He cannot wish to live it either in greed or in fear. Even in his life with others he cannot wish to recognise it as the dominant power or decisive law, nor can he wish to ignore it as indifferent or to fight it as an enemy. As regards both himself and others he can only wish that it should be given its rights, ~Thichmeans that it should be lived even though it is undoubtedly animal, but that it should be lived as a human life, as that of a man who is free in this respect too. This is its sanctification. This is obedience in this sphere. At this point we may insert what is to be said about the attitude of man to beasts and plants. The life of beasts as distinct from that of man is merely animally vegetative, and the life of plants as distinct from that of man and beasts is purely vegetative. If only we knew what this really means! If only we knew both forms of life from within, as lived by ourselves! What we first note in animal life (in common with our own) are simply the impulses as such. This is not much. We may well have to reckon on an animal soul, at any rate in the biblical sense of a principle of life. But whether and in what sense we may also ascribe to it a kind of rationality, and how we are to conceive of its relation to the impulses, and above all whether and in what sense it not only derives from God but also moves towards Him, remains an enigma. We venture a bold conclusion by analogy if we understand animally vegetative and particularly vegetative life as life in the same sense as human. It can only be said that the analogy forces itself upon us in virtue of the obvious affinity of physical structure at least in the case of animals, and especially of the vital impulses which animals share with man. The close connexion between man and beasts at any rate is a fact, and although our real understanding is so small, and cannot derive from a common centre, the relationship is so unmistakeable that at the boundary of our present concern for the command of respect for life the question at least arises whether there is a corresponding command in relation to EN16 EN17 EN18 EN19

mortify abuse by doing too much abuse by doing too little abuse

24

1.

Respect for Life

animal life, and at a rather greater distance vegetative life, outside the human sphere. We must refuse to build either ethics as a whole or this particular part of ethics on the view and concept of a life which embraces man, beast and plant. But now that we have spoken of the animal life of man, its right, dignity and sanctification, we cannot refuse to make a temporary halt and to consider the ethical problem of our relation to the life of animals at least, and to some extent of plants as well. Albert Schweitzer has not wholly unjustly complained of the narrowness and the reserve with which even naturalistic ethics has hitherto limited its attention to the address and dedication of man to man and human society. 'Just as the housewife who has scrubbed the room is careful to see that the door is shut lest the dog should come in and ruin the finished job with its footprints, so European thinkers are on their guard lest animals should intrude into ethics" (loc. cit., p. 225). As against this, ethics must venture the thought that "dedication must be extended not only to man but also to creatures, and in fact to all life that exists in the world and enters the sphere of man. Ethics must rise to the notion that man's relation to man is only an expression of the relation in which he stands to being and the world generally" (p. 228). So far the third volume of the actual philosophy in which Schweitzer was to expound this mystico-cosmic ethics has not yet appeared, though it was announced in 1923. Up to this point the only concrete indication given is in respect of the present question of the practical relation of man to beasts and plants. It is worth quoting th"e passage in extensoEN20: "Man is only truly ethical ifhe is obedient to the constraint to assist all life as he is able, and if he refrains from afflicting injury upon anything that lives. He does not ask in what way this or that form of life merits or does not merit sympathy as something valuable, nor does he enquire whether it is sensitive. Life as such is holy to him. He does not pluck a leaf from the tree, or pull a flower, or trample on an insect. When working by lamplight on a summer night, he would rather keep the windows closed and breathe stuffy air than see insect after insect fall on the table with wings that are singed. Ifhe walks along the street after rain and notices an earthworm which has lost its way,he reflects that it must shrivel up in the sun if it does not wriggle in time into the earth, and so he carries it from the death-dealing stones to the grass. If he comes upon an insect that has fallen into a puddle, he takes time to extend a leaf or a reed to save it. He is not afraid of being smiled at as a sentimentalist" (p. 240). And then again the general sentence from whose many repetitions and variations there emerges the one and so far the only concrete demand: "Ethics is infinitely extended responsibility to everything that lives" (p. 241). We may leave the general statement and ask what is to be said of the concrete demand. We certainly cannot dismiss it as "sentimental." Nor may we take the easy course of questioning the practicability of the instructions given, let alone the wider consequences and applications. The directness of the insight and feeling revealed (not unlike those of Francis of Assisi), and the constraint expressed, are stronger than all such criticism. Those who can only smile at this point are themselves subjects for tears. How do we reallyjustify ourselves if we differ from Schweitzer in this matter? For while the problem of treating life with respect becomes very obscure beyond its human form, it does not cease to be a problem. If we are really listening in relation to the human life of ourselves and others, we cannot feign deafness with regard to animal and vegetative life outside the human sphere. It is surely to Schweitzer's credit, even if on the basis of an unacceptable general presupposition, that he has warned us so warmly and earnestly to consider this question. There always have been

EN20

at length

25

[350]

~ 55. Freedom for Life men who in respect of non-human life have no greater knowledge but do have deeper and more vivid presentiments and intuitions and therefore feel more acute and detailed obligations than the great majority. It is told of one of the most enlightened of the younger generation of German theologians immediately after the First World War that he once discovered near Bamberg a weir on whose grating certain snails were always being caught and perishing, and that this made such an impression on him that from time to time he felt compelled to travel to Bamberg to help at least some of these creatures. And who is to say whether this kind of bizarre action is not in the long run at least as noble and respectable as the books in which men like F. T. Vischer, J. W. Widmann and Carl Spitteler, objecting strongly to the divine activity, dilate on the suffering of animals and commend themselves as thoughtful poets? But why should we not also hear the poets in this matter and take their insight to heart? It is hardly an accident that in those who speak along these lines there is usually something strange and even excessive. It may be connected with the fact that here we find ourselves at the extreme limit of what can be said and also done. What we hear along these lines obviously cannot be understood as doctrine, principle and precept, nor can the strange statements of Schweitzer on what man will do or not do in this matter if he is "truly ethical." It is a further help to our understanding that Schweitzer himself did not finally take up service as a veterinary surgeon but set a fine example of medical work among the natives of the Ogowe. His statements are simply a protest against our astonishing indifference and thoughtlessness in this matter. Whatever the solutions proposed, the problem itself is important. It may well be insoluble and barely tangible, but it is genuine and cannot be ignored. We have to ask how we are to treat the strange life of beasts and plants which is all around us. In the blessing of Noah and his sons we read in Gen. 92: "And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered." It is surely obvious that the possession of such power confers upon man a very definite responsibility towards non-human life. (Of recent publications on this problem the following are worth noting: Max Huber, the wellknown expert on constitutional law, Mensch und Tier, 1950, and Werner Tanner, Mensch und Tier in christlicher Sicht, 1950.)

[351]

Our starting-point must be that in this matter too, as a living being in co-existence with non-human life, man has to think and act responsibly. The responsibility is not the same as he has to his own life and that of his fellowmen. Only analogically can we bring it under the concept of respect for life. It can only follow the primary responsibility at a distance. Ifwe try to bring animal and vegetable life too close to human, or even class them together, we can hardly avoid the danger of regarding and treating human life, even when we really want to help, from the aspect of the animal and vegetable, and therefore in a way which is not really apposite. But why should we not be faced here by a responsibility which, if not primary, is a serious secondary responsibility? The special responsibility in this case rests primarily on this, that the world of animals and plants forms the indispensable living background to the livingspace divinely allotted to man and placed under his control. As they live, so can he. He is not set up as lord over the earth, but as lord on the earth which is already furnished with these creatures. Animals and plants do not belong to him; they and the whole earth can belong only to God. But he takes precedence of them. They are provided for his use. They are his "means of life." The meaning of the basis of this distinction consists in the fact that he is the animal

1.

Respect for Life

creature to whom God reveals, entrusts and binds Himself within the rest of creation, with whom He makes common cause in the course of a particular history which is neither that of an animal nor of a plant, and in whose lifeactivity He expects a conscious and deliberate recognition of His honour, mercy and power. Hence the higher necessity of his life, and his right to that lordship and control. He can exercise it only in the responsibility thus conferred upon him. But this lordship, and the responsibility which it confers, is in the first instance a differentiated one in respect of the animals and plants. Let us take first the case of plants. We can say unequivocally of these that man may and should exercise his creaturely and relative sovereignty by using them for food. There comes in here what we have stated to be the right of satisfying the animal needs and impulses of man. Man's vegetable nourishment, or the preceding harvest, is not the destruction of vegetation but a sensible use of its superfluity. The only possible limits lie in the nature of man as a rational being and beyond that in his vocation in relation to God and his fellow-men. The command of Gen. 128 is clear: "Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seeds; to you it shall be for meat." A. Schweitzer undoubtedly went too far when he insisted that the "truly ethical" man must not pluck flowers or pull leaves (probably because this is not directly necessary to human nourishment). Again, on a sensible application of this command no basic objections can be raised to the work of the wood-cutter. Naturally this does not mean that there is general licence. No one should behave in wood or field "like the boy who beheads the thistles." And on a larger scale there is much senseless waste and destruction from which a reverent humanity should refrain in this sphere and of which it has obviously been guilty only to its own destruction.

The question of this human lordship and its corresponding responsibility becomes more difficult when it is a matter of the relation between man and beast. Here, too, lordship can have the primary meaning of requisitioning, disciplining, taming, harnessing, exploiting and making profitable use of the surplus forces of nature in the animal world. For what is human lordship over the beast if it cannot take this form of "domesticating" animals? This is obviously the primary meaning when it says in Gen. 126, 28 that man is to have "dominion" over fish, birds, cattle, beasts and reptiles, and even that God commands him to "subdue" this whole realm. The same is true in Gen. 219 where it is left to man to give the beasts their names, i.e., to order them in what seems to be the best way.Similarly in Ps. 86f.: "Thou hast put all things under his feet: all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas" (cf. for what follows, Herbert Fritsche, Tierseele und Schopjungsgeheimnis, 1940).

Responsibility within the limits of lordship as understood in this way will consist in what is proposed for our consideration in Provo 1210: "A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel." Even within these limits there is still quite enough human stupidity, severity, caprice and irrationality at work ~nd needing to be curbed. Respect

[352]

~ 55. Freedom for Life for the fellow-creature of man, created with him on the sixth day and so closely related to him, means gratitude to God for the gift of so useful and devoted a comrade, and this gratitude will be translated into a careful, considerate, friendly and above all understanding treatment of it, in which sympathetic account is taken of its needs and the limits of its possibilities. It is said of a good horseman that he is so completely one with his horse that he always knows exactly to take out of it no more and no less than what it can not only give but is willing and glad to do so. If this is correct, in this respect a really good horseman cannot possibly be an ungodly person. Similar attainments are said to exist in relation to dogs and birds, and even on the part of intelligent attendants and trainers in relation to wild beasts. On the other hand, the relation between man and animals which are caged or beasts which are tamed merely to provide a spectacle or pleasure will alwayshave a doubtful elemen t, and the revolt of a sea-lion, for example, against what is demanded from it will evoke spontaneously the sympathy of all right-thinking spectators.

[353]

So far, so good! But does the lordship of man over the animal consist also in his self-evident freedom to take its life in the service of his own ends? Is he permitted and commanded to kill an animal in the same sense in which he fells a tree, whether for the sake of its meat, for its fur, horns, feathers or other useful articles, or even to defend himself against the threat of danger or damage which it offers? Those who know respect for life at the point where it arises in the true and primary sense, namely, in the human sphere, will necessarily perceive that there is at least a difference between the two cases. For the killing of animals, in contrast to the harvesting of plants and fruit, is annihilation. This is not a case of participation in the products of a sprouting nexus of life ceaselessly renewed in different forms, but the removing of a single being, a unique creature existing in an individuality which we cannot fathom but also cannot deny. The harvest is not a breach in the peace of creation, nor is the tending and using of animals, but the killing of animals presupposes that the peace of creation is at least threatened and itself constitutes a continuation of this threat. And the nearness of the animal to man irrevocably means that when man kills a beast he does something which is at least very similar to homicide. We must be very clear about this if we maintain that the lordship of man over animals carries with it the freedom to slaughter them. Those who do not hear the prior command to desist have certainly no right to affirm this freedom or cross the frontier disclosed at this point. The first chapters of Genesis contain an unmistakeable warning in this respect. To be sure, the language is not unambiguous, nor should we expect this to be the case. But the passage already quoted from Gen. 129 regarding the food assigned to man is full of eloquent silence with respect to the possibility of man eating the meat of animals. And even to the animals themselves only vegetable food seems to be alloted in Gen. 130. Between beast and beast no less than man and beast the peace of creation seems to be quite unbroken, unthreatened by needs or dangers. Man and beast find their table furnished by the world of plants, and cannot come into mutual collision. The question might be raised, of course, how the Priestly writing conceived of man's lordship over "the fish of the sea, the beast of the field" and even "the fowlsof the air," ifno thought was to be entertained of capturing or shooting them. And

1.

Respect for Life

there is also no mention of an explicit prohibition. But it is clear that P intends to exclude the idea of the annihilation of one creature by another from his description of their formation by God's creative Word. Even in the J source traces of animal slaughter and the general struggle for existence emerge only after the account of the fall of man, first in the drastic portrayal of the conflict between man and serpent (Gen. 315): "It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel," then in the curious story of the "coats of skins" which God first made for two human beings and with which He clothed them (Gen. 321), and then when it is said not of Cain but of Abel that he also brought "of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof," and to this there is added the explicit statement which is so decisive for an understanding of the whole narration: "And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering" (Gen. 44). The fact that animals are sacrificed, that Yahweh graciously accepts these sacrifices, and that in view of them He enters into a quite new and positive relation with the sinful humanity and curse-laden earth which had survived the flood, is taken for granted in Gen. 820f.; but it is only in Gen. 92 that we read of man's authorisation to bring "fear and dread" over all the beasts of the land, sea and air, then in Gen. 93 that we have the explicit supplement to Gen. 129: "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you: even as the green herb have I given you all things," and finally in Gen. 95f. the declaration of God'sjudgment and retribution upon both men and beasts that shed blood. From these findings it is evident that we have to do with a new and different order as regards the peace of creation of Gen. 1 and 2, if from now on the killing of animals seems to be permitted and even commanded. This new order is not yet possible and real in the pre-historical realm of the creature's fashioning by the Word of God, but only in the historical sphere of sinful man to whom God is still gracious, and in the sphere of the imperilled creature which is nevertheless preserved and saved by His goodness. In these spheres it is both possible and real. But in view of Gen 1 and 2 it should not be forgotten or expunged that it does not correspond with the true and original creative will of God, and that it therefore stands under a caveatEN21• Hence the Old Testament frequently refers to a last time (Hos. 218, Is. 6525 and esp. Is. 115f_) when there will be no more question of the struggle for existence and therefore of slaughter between man and beast. The history of the creature fashioned by the Word of God begins with the great episode in which the peace between God and itself is broken by man. The interim period which follows is the only time when the peace between creature and creature is broken and replaced by the struggle for existence. Only now can the animal become the enemy, disturber and destroyer of man and vice versa. Creation and consummation are the boundaries of history, and therefore of this interim period, and therefore of the time when man's lordship over the animal can and must also mean that the animal threatens man and that man slays the animal in order to live. But the first chapters of Genesis make it perfectly plain that the history of the creatures which begins with this episode, and this interim period with its painfully altered presuppositions, are also the time of God's faithfulness and patience towards man and the time of the covenant of grace. And strangely enough, the permitted and commanded slaughter of animals is set in the light of this fact. The point of it according to Gen. 4 and 8 is not that the use of animals by man for his own sustenance and enjoyment has been increased by this act of violence, but that animal life should be brought to God as an acceptable sacrifice for the life of man forfeited by his transgression. Why does he need animal life and its sacrifice? Not primarily for the satisfaction of his needs but as the representation of his guilt, for which there is forgiveness, which he does not need to bear himself to his own ruin, but which God wills to take from him and to take to Himself. When he destroys the animal and sheds its blood, when he causes it to be slaughtered and finally to be consumed by the flame of the EN21

warning

[354]

~ 55. Freedom for Life altar, he renounces its use for his own sustenance and enjoyment and surrenders it to God as a representation of that which God in His grace really is for him. Only subsequently in the form of the sacrificial meal, when he receives back something of what has been surrendered to God, does he then participate himself in the flesh of the animal, and therefore in the atoning meaning of its sacrifice, in the life that ebbed out instead of his own, and therefore again in God's own substitution for him. Nor is the reminder that the animal's life does not belong to man but to God suppressed by all this. On the contrary, it is awakened, and with it the reminder of the provisional and transitory nature of the whole interim period to which these substitutionary sacrifices eventually belong, until these are ended by the suffering and death of the man who will effect the promised reconciliation and in whom God Himself will directly take to Himself the forfeited life of man and offer Himself as a sacrifice.

[355]

If there is a freedom of man to kill animals, this signifies in any case the adoption of a qualified and in some sense enhanced responsibility. If that of his lordship over the living beast is serious enough, it takes on a new gravity when he sees himself compelled to express his lordship by depriving it of its life. He obviously cannot do this except under the pressure of necessity. Far less than all the other things which he dares to do in relation to animals, may this be ventured unthinkingly and as though it were self-evident. He must never treat this need for defensive and offensive action against the animal world as a natural one, nor include it as a normal element in his thinking or conduct. He must always shrink from this possibility even when he makes use of it. It always contains the sharp counter-question: Who are you, man, to claim that you must venture this to maintain, support, enrich and beautify your own life? What is there in your life that you feel compelled to take this aggressive step in its favour? We cannot but be reminded of the perversion from which the whole historical existence of the creature suffers and the guilt of which does not really reside in the beast but ultimately in man himself. The slaying of animals is really possible only as an appeal to God's reconciling grace, as its representation and proclamation. It undoubtedly means making use of the offering of an alien and innocent victim and claiming its life for ours. Man must have good reasons for seriously making such a claim. His real and supposed needs certainly do not justify it. He must be authorised to do so by his acknowledgment of the faithfulness and goodness of God, who in spite of and in his guilt keeps him from falling as He saved Noah's generation from the flood and kept it even though it was no better as a result. Man sins if he does it without this authorisation. He sins ifhe presumes to do it on his own authority. He is already on his way to homicide if he sins in the killing of animals, if he murders an animal. He must not murder an animal. He can only kill it, knowing that it does not belong to him but to God, and that in killing it he surrenders it to God in order to receive it back from Him as something he needs and desires. The killing of animals in obedience is possible only as a deeply reverential act of repentance, gratitude and praise on the part of the forgiven sinner in face of the One who is the Creator and Lord of man and beast. The killing of animals, when performed with the permission of God and by His command, is a priestly act of eschatalogical character. It can be accomp1ished

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with a good conscience only as we glance backward to creation and forward to the consummation as the boundaries of the sphere in which alone there can be any question of its necessity. It can be achieved only in recollection of the reconciliation of man by the Man who intercedes for him and for all creation, and in whom God has accomplished the reconciliation of the world with Himself. 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. 818f. (relevant, as I see it, in spite of A. Schlatter) concerning the "earnest expectation" (a7ToKapaDoKLa) 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 j-taTaLoT'Y]s EN22, not EKovaa EN23, nor according to its own destiny, but because of man, its subjugator. And it, too, is determined for liberation from the DOVA.€La T~S 4>8op s EN24 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. In this whole sphere what is good is obviously that which can be justified in face of these words, and what is bad that which cannot. A good hunter, honourable butcher and conscientious vivisectionist will differ from the bad in the fact that even as they are engaged in killing animals they hear this groaning and travailing of the creature, and therefore, in comparison with all others who have to do with animals, they are summoned to an intensified, sharpened and deepened diffidence, reserve and carefulness. In this matter they act on the extreme limits where respect for life and callous disregard constantly jostle and may easily pass into one another. On these frontiers, if anywhere, animal protection, care and friendship are quite indispensable. Yetit is not only understandable but necessary that the affirmation of this whole possibility should alwayshave been accompanied by a radical protest against it. It may well be objected against a vegetarianism which presses in this direction that it represents a wanton anticipation of what is described by Is. 11 and Rom. 8 as existence in the new aeon for which we hope. It may also be true that it aggravates by reason of its inevitable inconsistencies, its sentimentality and its fanaticism. But for all its weaknesses we must be careful not to put ourselves in the wrong in face of it by our own thoughtlessness and hardness of heart.

a

We now return to the question of respect for life in the human sphere. In its form as the will to live, it will also include the will to be healthy. The satisfaction of the needs of the impulses corresponding to man's vegetative and animal nature is one thing, but health, although connected with it, is quite another. Health means capability, vigour and freedom. It is strength for human life. It is the integration of the organs for the exercise of psycho-physical functions. I quote a definition by Richard Siebeck (Medizin in Bewegung. Klinische Erkenntnisse und arztliche A ufgaben, 1949, 486): "The healthy person possesses a feeling of joy and strength. Without knowing how it all happens, without any sensation of his organs, he lives with a natural urge to develop and express himself. He is a match for many difficulties, is largely protected against many dangers, and last but not least he is prepared for participation in and EN22 EN23 EN24

vanity willingly bondage of corruption

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S 55. Freedom/or Life devotion to work and achievement, in joy and if need be in much adversity" (cf. in connexion with this whole problem the author's introduction to the Lehrbuch der inneren Medizin, Vol. I, 1931, and Die Medizin in der Verantwortung, 1947).

If man may and should will to live, then obviously he may and should also will to be healthy and therefore to be in possession of this strength too. But the concept of this volition is problematical for many reasons and requires elucidation. For somehow it seems to be part of the nature of health that he who possesses it is not conscious of it nor preoccupied with it, but hardly ever thinks about it and cannot therefore be in any position to will it. I quote R. Siebeck (lac. cit., p. 24): "The healthy person feels well and fit, unimpaired and energetic. In the full consciousness of his health he is directly vital; being only occasionally posited as a particular content of consciousness, it gives to the whole consciousness its particular tone. The healthier we feel, the less we take notice of it and know about it. We do not think of the effortless expenditure of negative impulse, and we use our resources as the need arises in the environment and society in which we are placed."

If this is so, we must ask whether a special will for health is not a symptom of deficient health which can only magnify the deficiency by confirming it. And a further question which might be raised with reference to this will is whether we can reasonably affirm and seek health independently, or otherwise than in connexion with specific material aims and purposes.

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We again turn to R. Siebeck (p. 486): "Health is not complete without asking concerning its purpose. For we do not live in order to be healthy, but we are healthy and wish to be so in order to live and work. Only in enterprise and achievement is health a blessing entrusted to us. Health is not a final end in itself; it is defined and limited by the meaning of life, and the meaning of life is nothing but preparedness for devotion and sacrifice." We are indeed appalled at the many people who look upon health itself as a lofty or supreme goal, and "live for their health" alone. Lovingly cherishing their bodies or even their souls, and being constantly interested in what is good, less good or bad for them, they raise such things as sun, air and water, the power of different herbs and fruits, the beauty of a tanned skin and the dynamic strength of well-tempered muscles, and perhaps the possibilities of medical and psychological skill, and even quackery, to the level of beneficent demons to which they offer a devotion and credulity, and which they serve with a concentration and enthusiasm, that can only show them to be the unhealthiest persons. It is obvious that there is no place for this kind of attitude.

Yet included in the will to live there is a will to be healthy which is not affected by these legitimate questions but which, like the will to live, is demanded by God and is to be seriously achieved in obedience to this demand. By health we are not to think merely of a particular physical or psychical something of great value that can be considered and possessed by itself and therefore can and must be the object of special attention, search and effort. Health is the strength to be as man. It serves human existence in the form of the capacity, vitality and freedom to exercise the psychical and physical functions, just as these themselves are only functions of human existence. We 32

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can and should will it as this strength when we will not merely to be healthy in body and soul but to be man at all: man and not animal or plant, man and not wood or stone, man and not a thing or the exponent of an idea, man in the satisfaction of his instinctive needs, man in the use of his reason, in loyalty to his individuality, in the knowledge of its limitations, man in his determination for work and knowledge, and above all in his relation to God and his fellowmen in the proffered act of freedom. We can and should will this, and therefore we can and should will to be healthy. For how can we will, understand or desire the strength for all this unless in willing it we put it into operation in the smaller or greater measure in which we have it? And in willing to be man, how can we put it into operation unless we also will and seek and desire it? We gain it as we practise it. We should therefore will to practise it. This is what is demanded of man in this respect. Though we cannot deny the antithesis between health and sickness when we view the problem in this way,we must understand it in its relativity. Sickness is obviously negative in relation to health. It is partial impotence to exercise those functions. It hinders man in his exercise of them by burdening, hindering, troubling and threatening him, and causing him pain. But sickness as such is not necessarily impotence to be as man. The strength to be this, so long as one is still alive, can also be the strength and therefore the health of the sick person. And if health is the strength for human existence, even those who are seriously ill can will to be healthy without any optimism or illusions regarding their condition. They, too, are commanded, and it is not too much to ask, that so long as they are alive they should will this, i.e., exercise the power which remains to them, in spite of every obstacle. Hence it seems to be a fundamental demand of the ethics of the sick bed that the sick person should not cease to let himself be addressed, and to address himself, in terms of health and the will which it requires rather than sickness, and above all to see to it that he is in an environment of health. From the same standpoint we cannot count on conditions of absolute and total health, and therefore on the existence of men who are already healthy and do not need the command to will to be so. Even healthy people have great need of the will for health, though perhaps not of the doctor. Conditions of relative and subjectively total ease in relation to the psychophysical functions of life may well exist. But whether the man who can enjoy such ease is healthy, i.e., a man who lives in the power to be as man, is quite another question which we need only ask, and we must immediately answer that in reality he may be severely handicapped in the exercise of this power, and therefore sick, long before this makes itself felt in the deterioration of his organs or their functional disturbance, so that he perhaps stands in greater need of the summons that he should be healthy than someone who already suffers from such deterioration and disturbance and is therefore regarded as sick in soul or body or perhaps both. And who of us has not constantly to win and possess this strength? A fundamental demand of ethics, even for the man who seems to be and to a large extent really is "healthy in body and

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soul," is thus that he should not try to evade the summons to be healthy in the true sense of the term. On the same presupposition it will also be understood that in the question of health we must differentiate between soul and body but not on any account separate the two. The healthy man, and also the sick, is both. He is the soul of his body, the rational soul of his vegetative and animal body, the ruling soul of his serving body. But he is one and the same man in both, and not two. Health and sickness in the two do not constitute two divided realms, but are always a single whole. It is always a matter of the man himself, of his greater or lesser strength, and the more or less serious threat and even increasing impotence. It is he who has been predominantly ill and he who may be predominantly well. Or it is he who must perhaps go the opposite way from predominant health to predominant sickness. It is he who is on the way from the one or the other. Hence he does not have a specific healthy or sick life of the soul with particular dominating or subjugated, unresolved or resolved inclinations, complexes, ties, prohibitions and impulses, and then quite apart from this, in health or sickness, in the antithesis, conflict and balance of the two, an organic vegetative and animal life of the body. On the contrary, he lives the healthy or sick life of his soul in his body and with the life of his body, so that in both, and in their mutual relationship, it is a matter of his life's history, his own history. Again, he does not have a specific physical life in the sound or disordered functions of his somatic organs, his nervous system, his blood circulation, digestion, urination and so on, and then in an upper storey a separate life of the soul. But he lives the healthy or sick life of his body together with that of his soul, and again in both cases, and in their mutual relationship, it is a matter of his life's history, his own history, and therefore himself. And the will for health as the strength to be as man is obviously quite simply, and without duplication in a psychical and physical sphere, the will to continue this history in its unity and totality. A man can, of course, orientate himself seriously, but only secondarily, on this or that psychical or physical element of health in contrast to sickness. But primarily he will always orientate himself in this contrast on his own being as man, on his assertion, preservation and renewal (and all this in the form of activity) as a subject. In all his particular decisions and measures, if they are to be meaningful, he must have a primary concern to confirm his power to be as man and to deny the lack of power to be this. In all stages of that history the question to be answered is: "Wilt thou be made whole?" (In. 56), and not: "Wilt thou have healthy limbs or be free of their sickness?" The command which we must always obey is the command to stand upright and not to fall. From exactly the same standpoint again there can be no indifference to the concrete problems of getting and remaining well. If in the question of health we were concerned with a specific psychical or physical quantity, we might be interested at a distance in the one or the other, and seek health and satisfaction first in psychology and then in a somatic form of healing, only to tire

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no less arbitrarily of one or the other or perhaps both, and to let things take their course. But if on both sides it is a matter of the strength to be as man, on both sides we are free from the anxious or fanatical expectation that real decisions can and must be made, but also free to give to the psychical and physical spheres the attention due to them in this respect because they are the field on which the true decisions of the will for health must be worked out. It is precisely in the continuation of his life of soul and body that the history of man must continue in the strength to be as man. What he can do for the continuation and therefore against every restriction of his life of soul and body, he ought to will to do ifhe is to be healthy, ifhe is to live in this strength, and ifhis history is to proceed in the strength of his being as man. In order that this strength may not degenerate into a process in which he is only driven as an object and is therefore no longer man, in order that he may remain its subject and therefore man, he must be on the watch and active for the continuation and against the constriction of his psychical and physical life. The fact that he wills to rise up and stand in this power, and not to fall into weakness, is not in the least decided by the various measures which he might adopt to maintain and protect his psychical and physical powers. He could adopt a thousand measures of this kind with full zeal and skill, and yet not possess the will to maintain this strength, thus lacking the will for health and falling in spite of all his efforts. But if he possesses the will to win and maintain this strength, it is natural that he should be incidentally concerned to take the necessary precautions to preserve and protect his psychical and physical powers, and this in a responsible and energetic way in which the smallest thing is not too small for him nor the greatest too great. At this point, therefore, we may legitimately ask, and must do so in all seriousness, what is good, or not good, or more or less good, for the soul and body. There is a general and above all a particular hygiene of the psychical and physical life concerning the possibilities and limitations of which we must all seek individual clarity by investigation and experience and also by instruction from a third party, and to which we must all keep in questions of what we mayor may not do. In such a hygiene God's gifts of sun, air and water will be applied as the most important factors, effective positively in the psychical no less than the physical sphere. Hygiene is the foundation of every prophylactic against possible illness, as it is also the main basis of therapy where illness has already commenced. We have to realise, however, that in all the negative or positive measures which may be taken it is a matter of maintaining, protecting and restoring not merely a strength which is necessary and may be enjoyed in isolation, but the strength even to be at all as man. It is because so much is at stake, because being as man is a history enacted in space and developing in, with and by the exercise of the psychical and physical functions of life, that attention is demanded at this point and definite measures must be incidentally taken by all of us. Sport may also be mentioned in this connexion. But sport has, legitimately, other dimensions, namely, those of play, of the development of physical strength and of competition, so that it may even constitute a threat to health in the true sense of the term as it now concerns us. We shall thus content ourselves with the statement that sport may form a part of hygiene, and therefore ought to do so in specific instances. The question has often been raised, and will never find a wholly satisfactory answer, whether the measures to be adopted in this whole sphere really demand the consultation of

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a doctor. The doctor is a man who is distinguished from others by his general knowledge of psychical or physical health or sickness on the basis of tradition, investigation and daily renewed and corrected experience. He is thus in a position to pass an objective verdict on the psychical or physical health or sickness of others. He is capable of assisting them in their necessary efforts to maintain or regain health by his advice or orders or even, if necessary, direct intervention. What objections can there be to consulting a doctor? Ifwe acknowledge the basic fact that we are required to will the strength to be as man, that we are thus required to will psycho-physical forces, and that weare thus commanded to take all possible measures to maintain or preserve this basic power, there seems to be no reason why consultation of a doctor should not find a place among these measures. This is the wise and prudent verdict of Ecclesiasticus in a famous passage (c. 38): "For of the Most High cometh healing the Lord has created medicines out of the earth, and he that is wise will not abhor them And he has given men skill that he might be honoured in his marvellous works. With such doth the physician heal men, and taketh away their pains. Of such doth the apothecary make a confection; and of his works there is no end, and from him is peace over all the earth" (vv. 2 ff.). Therefore, "give place to the physician, for the Lord has created him; let him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him. There is a time when in their hands there is good success. For they shall also pray unto the Lord, that he would prosper that which they give for ease and remedy to prolong life" (vv. 12 ff.). What do we have against the medical man? Apart from a general and illegitimate passivity in matters of health and sickness, the main point seems to be that there are reasons to suspect the objectivity of the knowledge, diagnosis and therapy of a stranger to whom we are required to give place and confidence at the very heart of our own history, handing over to him far-reaching powers of authority and instruction. The more a man understands the question of health and sickness correctly, i.e., the question of his own strength to be as man and therefore of the continuation of his own life history, the more he will entertain this kind of suspicion in relation to the doctor, not in spite of but just because of his science as general knowledge, and the objectiveness of his verdict, orders and interventions. Is not health or sickness, particularly when it is understood as strength or weakness to be as man, the most subjective thing that there is? What can the stranger with his general science know of this strength or weakness of mine? How can he really help me? How can I surrender myself into his hands? Yet this form of argument, and the suspicion based upon it, is quite mistaken, and Ecclesiasticus is in the right against it. For it rests on a misunderstanding in which the doctor himself may share through a presumptuous conception of his position, but which may well exist only on the part of the suspicious patient. Health in the true sense of the term as strength to be as man is not to be expected from any of the measures which can be adopted in the sphere of psychical and physical functions as a defence against sickness or for the preservation or restoration of health. There exists, more perhaps in the imagination of others than on the part of experts, or at any rate of genuine and serious experts, a medical and especially in our own day a psychological totalitarianism and imperialism which would have it that the doctor is the one who really heals. In this form, he must truly be warded off as an unpleasant stranger. There is, in fact, an ancient and in itself interesting connexion between medical and priestly craft. But both doctors and others are urgently asked not to think of the medical man as occupying the position and role of a priest. In all these or similar presumptuous forms, he will probably not be able to help even in the sphere and sense in which he might actually do so. It was probably in some such form that he confronted the woman of whom it is written in Mk. 526: "She had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse." But in his true form, why should not the doctor be the man who is really able to assist others in his own

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sphere? And why should he not be looked upo~ in this wayeven when he perhaps appears in that perverted form? In what waycan he help? Can he promote the strength to be as man? No, this is something which each can only will, desire and strive for, but not procure nor attain of himself. This is something which even the best doctor can only desire for him. And he will be a better doctor the more consciously he realises his limitations in this respect. For in this way he can draw the attention of others to the fact that the main thing in getting well is something in which neither he nor any human measure can help. If he is a Christian doctor, in certain cases he will explicitly draw attention to this fact. He will then be free to help where he can and should do so, namely, in the sphere of the psychical and physical functions. In relation to these, to their organic, chemical and mechanical presuppositions, to their normal progress and its laws, to their difficulties and degeneracies, to their immediate causes, and to that which can be done in certain circumstances to promote their normal progress and prevent their disturbance, in short, to human life and its health and sickness, there exists more than individual knowledge and opinion. Within the limits of all human knowledge and ability, there are general insights the knowledge of which is based on a history, rich in errors but also in genuine discoveries, of innumerable observations, experiences and experiments, and there are also the general rules to apply this history in the diagnosis and therapy of the individual case. For in this sphere every man, irrespective of his uniqueness before God and among men, is also a specimen, a case among many cases to be classified in the categories of this science, an object to which its rules may be applied. To be sure, each is a new and individual case in which the science and its rules take on a new and specific form. It is the task and business of the doctor to find and apply the new and specific form of the science and its application to the individual case. Hence he is not for any of us an absolute stranger in this sphere. He is a relative newcomer to the extent that each case is necessarily new. But from the standpoint of his science and its practice he is a competent newcomer, and as such he deserves trust rather than suspicion, not an absolute confidence, but a solid relative confidence that in this matter he has better general information than we have, and that for the present we can hopefully submit to his judgment, advice, direction and even intervention in our own particular case. Those who cannot show this confidence ought not to trouble the doctor, nor to be troubled by him. But why should we not show this modest confidence when dealing with a modest doctor? Ecclesiasticus is quite right to say: "The Lord has created him too." Medical art and science rest like others on a legitimate use of the possibilities given to man. If the history of medicine has been as little free from error, negligence, one-sidedness and exaggeration as any other science, in its main development it has been and still is, to lay eyes at least, as impressive, honourable and promising as, for instance, theology. There is no real reason to ignore its existence or refuse its offer. How can the doctor help? Obviously by giving free play, and removing the obstacles, to the will for real health, i.e., the will to exist forcefully as man, which he cannot give to any of us but to which he may supremely exhort us. Psychical and physical illness is naturally a hindrance to this will. It restricts its development. It constitutes an external damaging of it. The doctor's task is to investigate the particular type and form of illness in any given case, to trace its causes in the heredity, constitution, life history and mode of life of the patient, and to study its secondary conditions and consequences, its course thus far, its present position and threatened progress. If humanly speaking everything depends on that will, is it not a great help to be able to learn with some degree of reliability what is really wrong, or more positively what possibilities of movement and action still remain in spite of the present injury, and within what limits one may still will to be healthy? And these limits might, of course, be extended. The doctor goes on to treat the patient with a view to arresting at least the damage, to weakening its power and effect, perhaps even to tackling its

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causes and thus removing it altogether, so that the patient is well again at least in the medical sphere. And even if the doctor cannot extend the limits of life available, he can at least make the restrictive ailment tolerable, or at worst, if there is no remedy and the limits become progressively narrower, he can do everything possible to make them relatively bearable. All this may be done by the doctor within the limits of his subjective mastery of his medical science and skill. He cannot do more, but at least he cannot do less. And in this way he can assist the will to live in its form as the will to be healthy. In this respect he can encourage man in the strongest sense of the word, and by removing, arresting or palliating the hampering illness he can give him both the incentive to do what he may still do, i.e., to will to be healthy, and also joy and pleasure in doing it. Having done this to the best of his ability, he should withdraw. He has no power in the crucial issue of the strength or weakness of the patient to be as man. He has no control over the will of the patient in this antithesis. Indeed, he has only a very limited power even over the health or sickness of his organs, of the psychical and physical functions in which that strength and the will for it must express themselves in conflict against the weakness. But if he does his best where he can, we must be grateful to him. Finally, we have to remember that, when seriously posed, the whole question of measures to be adapted for the protection or recovery of the freedom of vital functions necessarily goes beyond the answers given by each of us individually. The basic question of the power to be as man, and therefore of the will for this power and therefore for real health, and the associated question of its expression and exercise, are questions which are not merely to be raised and answered individually but in concert. They are social questions. Hygiene, sport and medicine arrive too late, and cannot be more than rather feeble palliatives, if such general conditions as wages, standards of living, working hours, necessary breaks, and above all housing are so ordered, or rather disordered, that instead of counteracting they promote and perhaps even cause illness, and therefore the external impairing of the will for life and health. Respect for life in the form in which we now particularly envisage it necessarily includes responsibility for the standard of living conditions generally, and particularly so for those to whom they do not constitute a personal problem because they personally need not suffer or fear any threat from this angle, being able to enjoy at least the possibility of health, and to take measures for its protection or recovery, in view of their income, food, working hours, rest and wider interests. The principle mens sana in corpore sanoEN25 can be a highly short-sighted and brutal one if it is only understood individually and not in the wider sense of in societate sana. EN26 And this extension cannot only mean that we must see to it that the benefits of hygiene, sport and medicine are made available for all, or at least as many as possible. It must mean that the general living conditions of all, or at least of as many as possible, are to be shaped in such a way that they make not just a negative but a positive preventative contribution to their health, as is the case already in varying degrees with the privileged. The will for health of the individual must therefore take also the form of the will to improve, raise and perhaps radically transform the general living conditions of all men. If there is no other way,it must assume the form of the will for a new and quite different order of society, guaranteeing better living conditions for all. Where some are necessarily ill the others cannot with good conscience will to be well. Nor can they really do it at all if they are not concerned about neighbours who are inevitably sick because of their social position. For sooner or later the fact of this illness will in some way threaten them in spite of the measures which they take to isolate themselves and which may be temporarily and partially successful. When one person is ill, the whole of society is really ill in all its members. In the battle against sickness the final human word cannot be isolation but only fellowship. In this present conEN25 EN26

a sound mind in a sound body in a sound society

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text the bald assertion must suffice. But we must underline that it contains an integral and indeed conclusive part of what falls to be said on the question of the practical measures to be adopted in willing to exist forcefully as man (cf. in this connexion Carl Henschen, Die soziale Sendung des Arztes, 1944).

But we have now to answer the two most difficult questions in this sphere. We have so far accepted the fact that man has the strength to be as man, that he can will and affirm it as such, and that he can therefore will and adopt the corresponding measures of this will in the sphere of his vital functions of soul and body. We have understood disease as merely the weakness opposed to, this strength, as that which is not to be willed but contested in the will to live, as the shadow which recedes as it were before health and the will for health. This is one aspect of the matter. But there are two very different aspects, and we must now try to explain what the will to be healthy is in relation to them. We may begin by saying generally that sickness is not an illusion, even though there is such a thing as illusory sickness and therefore those who are ill only in their imagination. One does not need to be a doctor to know the type of a Malade imaginaireEN27 which Moliere has sentenced to literary immortality and which constitutes a plague both to himself and those around. This type, though not alwaysso easily recognised and seldom so laughable as in the caricature, is much more common than we suppose. Indeed, in many cases it is probably identical with the friends and apostles of health at any cost. And we cannot with , unqualified confidence hand over such hypochondriacs to psychological specialists, since the interest shown in this science can have the result of adding new contingents to their number.

Ifwe see the problem of psychical and physical health and sickness properly in its unity, and this unity itself from a higher standpoint, i.e., in the light of the question of the strength or weakness to be as man, we can only regard and treat the victim of imaginary ailments as one who is really very ill, although not in the way that he thinks. We certainly cannot ridicule him, or find in him support for the general proposition that all sickness is an illusion. Sickness is no illusion, whether in relation to the opposing will to live in the true and secondary sense, or objectively as a different condition from the real strength to be as man and the freedom of secondary vital forces, or in relation to God as the Creator of human life and the will to live. The tenet that sickness is an illusion is the basic negative proposition which in the seventies of the last century the American Mary Baker Eddy said that she did not lay down but "discovered" through the authoritative inspiration of a book now regarded as canonical, namely, Christian Science. What was at first a small group of adherents has since spread to all parts of the world in the form of religious societies which are particularly popular among the upper and middle classes and more especially among women. Karl Holl has depicted and done it almost too much justice in a careful study entitled "Scientismus" Ges. Aufs. z. Kgsch. III, 1928, 460 f.). The positive basis of this teaching is that God is the only reality, that he is EN27

hypochondriac

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Spirit and that the whole creation is only a reflection of his spiritual essence. Apart from God there are only powers, which in reality are only thoughts. All matter as such represents a mere appearance, and the same is true of all such associated features as sin, sickness, evil and death. Man as the image of God always was and is and shall be perfect. Everything that contradicts this perfection is in reality only an illusion and misunderstanding rooted in the forgetfulness of God, which in turn evokes fear. And fear is the true basis of all illness; indeed, it is actually illness itself. For fear creates a picture of illness which then falls externally upon the body. "Youmaintain that an ulcer is painful; but that is impossible, for matter without mind is not painful. The ulcer merely reveals by inflammation and swelling an appearance of pain, and this appearance is called an ulcer." The true and psychical man is not touched by it. He is only as it were enveloped in a mist and has disappeared from consciousness. Evil is unreal. "Take awayfear, and at the same time you have also removed the soil on which sickness thrives." jesus was and is the embodiment of truth which scatters and breaks through the mist of these false appearances. The power bestowed and the task presented by Him consist in recognising that God is Spirit and that man belongs to Him and is eternally at one with the God who is Spirit. It thus consists in freeing oneself from the false appearances of sin (which even Mrs. Eddy puts first), sickness and death. For death, too, is only man's "disappearance from our level of consciousness." Supremely, this power and task are identical with prayer, in which everything evil really subsides into nothingness. Any other measures, and especially the well-meant action of the doctor, are a sin against the first commandment. Medical diagnosis, which Mrs. Eddy regards as particularly evil, is replaced by "mind-reading," which is possible at a great distance and in which the thought images which dominate the sufferer are noted. Medical treatment is supplanted by prayer, in which it can only be a matter of acknowledging the cure already effected by God, of understanding His completed work and of initiating it in the patient. The "healer"-the name given to the active members of the Christian Science Association-is not then to rouse and fortify the will of others through his own, but simply to make a free path in the sufferer for the divine operation. "Call to mind the presence of health and the fact of harmonious existence, until the body corresponds to the normal condition of health and harmony." This doctrine has several features which remind us of the message of the New Testament, and which are of course derived from it: the recognition of fear as the basic evil in man's relation to God; an unconditional trust in the efficacy of prayer; and bold reference to a work already completed by God. But these are all devalued by the fact that they are related to a viewwhich has nothing to do with that of the New Testament but in the light of it can only be described as utterly false. The fact that Christian Science can undoubtedly point to successes in healing-as well as to disastrous failures-cannot of itself commend it to Christians. As is well-known, the magicians of Pharaoh could do quite a number of things. And the concession that Karl Holl (loc. cit., p. 477) is willing to make, namely, that its positive presupposition at least is correct, is one which cannot really be made to it. God is indeed the basis of all reality. But He is not the only reality. As Creator and Redeemer He loves a reality which is different from Himself, which depends upon Him, yet which is not merely a reflection nor the sum of His powers and thoughts, but which has in face of Him an independent and distinctive nature and is the subject of its own history, participating in its own perfection and subjected to its own weakness. As the coming of the kingdom, the incarnation of the Word and the death and resurrection of jesus Christ in His true humanity are not just an appearance, so it is with man in general, whether in his nature or perversion, in his psychical being or his physical, in his divine likeness or his sin and transgression. It is because Mrs. Eddy did not understand this that sin, evil and death-in conquest of which jesus Christ did not "disappear from our level of consciousness" but actually died on the cross-are for her mere "appearances" of human thinking, and redemption is only the act of man in which he sub-

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merges himself in God and leads a life submerged in God in order that God may work in him, putting an end to those "appearances" or thought images and bringing to light the perfection of psychical essence which was never lost, the presence of health and the fact of harmonious being. On this point we can only say that both the Old and New Testaments regard not only God and man, not only sin, evil and death and their conquest, but also sickness in a different light. They certainly do not see it as an illusion, and its conquest as the dispelling of this illusion. Whether Christian Science is really "science" need not occupy us here. But there can be no doubt that it is not "Christian" science.

Sickness is real. Certainly, as an encroachment on the life which God has created, it is not real in the same way as God is. In what sense, then, is it real? We shall take up this point in a moment, but we may begin by simply observing that if man, even the sick man, is really healthy in the strength which he still has and can still exert to be as man, then the weakness which opposes this strength is not as such an appearance but is effective and real, so that his will for health already meets a hard "object" in this primary and essential sense. But the same is also true of the impairing of his psychical and physical powers which takes place in illness. His transition from health to sickness, the resistance which illness offers to his health, the effort and trouble which it costs ifhe or the doctor adopts the appropriate measures against it, the obstinacy with which it maintains itself in spite of all these measures, the triumphs which it can enjoy in spite of them-these are not all plays of the imagination, but real events in the real history of the real man. And the will to live as the will for heal th is a serious act of obedience to a serious command of God because man is not dealing with a fake or imaginary opponent but with an enemy which is in some sense real. Yet the question arises what kind of reality this is. And we must try to explain this if we are to understand more deeply and seriously what the will to be healthy really means and does not mean. Again, however, two different aspects open up before us. The one aspect which dominates the field in the Old and New Testament Scriptures, and which has always to be remembered first materially, is the one in which sickness is a forerunner and messenger of death, and indeed of death as the judgment of God and the merited subjection of man to the power of nothingness in virtue of his sin. From this standpoint, sickness like death itself is unnatural and disorderly. It is an element in the rebellion of chaos against God's creation. It is an act and declaration of the devil and demons. To be sure, it is no less bound to God and dependent on Him than the creature which He created. Indeed, it is impotent in relation to him in a double way. For like sin and death it is neither good nor is it willed and created by God at all, but is real, effective, powerful and menacing only as part of that which He has negated, of His kingdom on the left hand, and therefore with its nullity. But in accordance with the will of God and under His reign it is necessarily dangerous-as the forerunner and messenger of death, the executor of God's final sentence-to the man who has fallen from God and become His enemy.

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What does health mean as the power to be as man, and what do the vital functions of soul and body mean as the sphere for the exercise of this strength, if sickness is this reality, if it is an element and sign of the power of the chaos threatening creation on the one hand, and on the other an element and sign of God's righteous wrath and judgment, in short, an element and sign of the objective corruption which is related and corresponds to human sin and from which there is no deliverance apart from the mercy of God in Jesus Christ? This is the way in which sickness is understood in the Psalms and the Book of Job and the Synoptic Gospels. It is the inevitable encroachment of the realm of death upon the living space squandered and forfeited by man. And it is resisted byJesus when as the Representative of the positive will of God He first institutes, in His miracles of help, healing, exorcism and resurrection, signs of the kingdom of God, of His true kingdom on the right hand in which He Himself and man on earth will be really glorified, and then finally and paradoxically attacks and breaks it in His own surrender to the judgment of death, changing its victory into defeat as revealed in His resurrection as the proclamation of the glorious goal and end of all things.

What does health mean from this standpoint, and what is the meaning of the will to be healthy in the primary and secondary senses in which we have hitherto understood it? The following consideration suggests itself. When seen in this way, sickness is a superior power in relation to which there can be no question at all of health or the will to be healthy. What is man with his health and will for health in face of the invasion of the realm of death to which he himself has deliberately opened the defences? What is he in face of the divine judgment by which he is overtaken in this assault? What can he do in this situation? What can the whole field of ethics tell him in these circumstances? What is there left to will? Strength to be as man? Psycho-physical powers? Is it not almost grotesque from this standpoint to try even to think of a human determination, let alone of human measures, along the lines considered? Are not faith and prayer the only real possibilities in face of this reality of sickness? But this whole consideration is only defeatist thinking, and not at all Christian. It overlooks the fact that the command of God is not withdrawn but still in force, namely, that man must will to live and not die, to be healthy and not to be sick, and to exercise and not neglect his strength to be as man and the remaining psycho~physical forces which he has for this purpose, and thus to maintain himself. This command has not been revoked even for sinful man forfeited to the judgment of God, and it is not for him to counter God with speculations whether obedience to it is possible or offers any prospects. Unquestioning obedience is his only option if he is not to bring himself into greater condemnation. Again, this consideration overlooks the fact that the realm of death which afflicts man in the form of sickness, although God has given it power and it serves as an instrument of His righteous judgment, is opposed to His good will as Creator and has existence and power only under His mighty No. To capitulate before it, to allow it to take its course, can never

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be obedience but only disobedience towards God. In harmony with the will of God, what man ought to will in face of this whole realm on the left hand, and therefore in face of sickness, can only be final resistance. Again and supremely, this consideration overlooks the fact that God Himself is not only Judge but faithful, gracious and patient in His righteous judgment, that He Himself has already marched against that realm on the left, and that He has overcome and bound its forces and therefore those of sickness in Jesus Christ and His sacrifice, by which the destroyer was himself brought to destruction. Those who know this, and therefore that they are already helped in this matter, can only reply to the faithfulness of God with a new unfaithfulness if they try to fold their hands and sigh and ask what help there is or what more they can will. Within the modest limits in which this is still possible they must will what God has already willed and indeed definitely fulfilled in Jesus Christ concerning sickness and that whole kingdom on the left hand. With God they must say No to it without asking what the result will be or how much or little it will help themselves or others, without enquiring whether it is not rather feeble and even ridiculous to march into action in accordance with this No. A little resolution, will and action in face of that realm and therefore against sickness is better than a whole ocean of pretended Christian humility which is really perhaps the mistaken and perverted humility of the devil and demons. There is, of course, a right deduction to be drawn from the fact that sickness is real in this sense, i.e., as an element and sign of the power of chaos and nothingness, and therefore as an element and sign of the judgment of God falling on man. The right deduction is that all resistance to sickness, all human willing of the strength to be as man, all human affirmation, cultivation and promotion of the vital forces of body and soul, is necessarily in vain if God is not God; if He does not live, speak, act and make Himself responsible for man; if this whole cause is not first and supremely His own cause; if His is not the judgment on man from which we cannot escape; if His is not the grace which is the meaning of this judgment; and above all if His is not the judgment on the destroyer and destruction itself which by reason of man's sin can have a little space, but which can have only the space allowed and allotted by God, and in relation to which God is absolute Lord and conclusive Victor. Without or even against God there is, of course, nothing that man can will in this matter. And if faith in Him and prayer to Him cannot be a refuge for weak-willed and defeatist Christians who are lazy, cowardly and resigned in face of His and their enemy, we must also say with the same certainty that if the conflict enjoined upon man in this matter is to be meaningful, faith in Him and prayer to Him must never be lost sight of as its conditio sine qua non EN28, but continually realised as the true power of the will required of man in this affair. They cannot replace what is to be modestly, soberly and circumspectly, but energetically, willed and done by man. They cannot replace his determination to exercise EN28

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his little strength to be as man, and thereby to maintain himself. They cannot replace hygiene, sport and medicine, or the social struggle for better living conditions for all. But in all these things they must be the orientation on the command of God which summons man inexorably, and with no possible conditions to will and action. They must be the orientation on the righteousjudgment of God in recognition of which man constantly discovers, and again without murmuring or surrender, the limitation of his willing and doing and its consequences. Above all, they must be the orientation on the inexhaustible consolation of the promise, on true and effective encouragement by the One who as the Creator of life primarily espouses this as His own cause, and fights and has already conquered for us in the whole glory of His mercy and omnipotence. It is true that without Him, without the orientation on Him, all ethics, all human willing and doing, can only be futile and impotent in relation to the superiority of evil which opposes us also in the form of sickness; and worse still, that it can only be rebellion against the judgment of God and therefore increase its severity. But it is also true, and even more so, that human willing and acting with God, and in orientation on Him, and with faith and prayer to Him, whatever the outcome, has the promise which man cannot lack, and the fulfilment of which he will soon see, if he will simply obey without speculation. Those who take up this struggle obediently are already healthy in the fact that they do so, and theirs is no empty desire when they will to maintain or regain their health. "If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptian: for I am the Lord that healeth thee" (Ex. 1526). This is the divine Magna Carta in the matter of health and all related questions. jer. 336 points into the same direction: "Behold, I will bring this city health and cure, and I will cure them, and will reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth." And Ps. 10717[. sounds like a response: "Fools because of their transgressions, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted. Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat; and they draw near unto the gates of death. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he saveth them out of their distresses. He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions. Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men! And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare his works with rejoicing." In Ps. 302[. we hear the voice of a man who by the gracious and wonderful power of God has been snatched from sickness, i.e., from the grasp of death's power: "0 Lord my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me. 0 Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit." But this could never happen without crYing to God and the intervention of His gracious and wonderful power. When a really sick person may really get well again, an all-powerful and inescapable danger is halted and repelled by the One who alone can properly and finally do this, because He alone can forgive sins and force the onrushing billows of chaos to recede. It is for this reason that in the story of the mortal sickness of Hezekiah in 2 K. 20lf. we first have the inexorable statement: "Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live," and only then, as confirmed and symbolised by the sign of the backward-going shadow on the sundial: "I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears:

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behold I will heal thee: on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the Lord." And in this instance it is notable that the same prophet Isaiah who speaks the word ofjudgment and grace also acts as a doctor, not treating the ulcer of tile sick man as a mere "appearance" in the sense of Mrs. Eddy, but laYing upon it a plaster of figs. Similarly, divine and human healing as well as forgiveness and healing seem to be conjoined in the remarkable direction ofJas. 514f .• If the latter is not without the former, neither is the former without the latter. "Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him." We know as little concerning the substance of the xup{a/J-uTu lU/J-o'TWV EN29 mentioned in 1 Cor. 129 as concerning most of the "gifts of grace" of the Holy Spirit mentioned in this and other passages. But there can be no doubt at least that we are to think of a power against sickness which is effective and known in the congregation as a transitory or lasting characteristic of some of its members, not as something belonging to these people, but as a free gift of God, and yet exercised by these people. Perhaps we do well not to bring this power into too close relation with the cures of Jesus as the unique "signs and wonders" of the kingdom come on earth in Him and Him alone, but rather to understand it as a possibility of a secondary type. Yet there can be no doubt that the apostolic proclamation of the kingdom and of the name of its Bearer did also include this possibility, and that we see the community, in the possession and exercise of these gifts and in the following ofJesus Christ, engaged in conflict against sickness and not at peace with it. It is not a wilful fight, but one which is laid upon it and for which it is empowered by the grace of God. It is necessary to recall at this point the man who in the middle of the 19th century was enabled with his distinctive presuppositions and tendencies to put in an entirely new light this side of the New Testament understanding, and especially those elements in New Testament ethics for which the older orthodox, pietistic and rationalistic Protestantism and even the Reformers had no brief, namely,J. C. Blumhardt. In word and deed Blumhardt made it plain that from one standpoint sickness is the exponent of an ungodly and inhuman reality in relation to which the Christian attitude can only be one of indignation and conflict in co-operation with God and faith in Him and prayer to Him. "The stories of Blumhardt are an abomination to me" (R. Bultmann, Kerygma undMythus, 1948, 150). But this is to speak in a waywhich at least requires some in terpretation. A penetrating and judicious analysis of these "stories," and especially that of the complete cure of Gottliebin Dittus in. the year 1843, has led Water Schulte to the following results from the standpoint of medicine and psychiatry (Ev. Theol., 1949-50, Number 4, p. 151 ff.). The "measure" ofmythologico-magical thinking which Blumhardt shared with his time and environment is not to be related to the form in which he understood and handed down this event, but to the very structure of the happening itself. There are elements in it which defy any kind of medical interpretation. It may well be assumed that Gottliebin Dittus suffered neither from an organic nor a genuine mental illness but from an attack 'of serious hysteria, and that its cure by Blumhardt is to be ascribed to auto-suggestion actually though unconsciously practised by him. In making this identification, Schulte rejoices as a doctor at the fervour with which Blumhardt both repudiates any false passivity and patience in suffering supposedly incurable pains and also warns against giving way too soon to sickness. And above all he affirms the faith which on any interpretation shines from this story for every age-a faith which in all circumstances and every situation counts on the saving reality of God in this world. Indeed, he approves the implied relationship between forgiveness and healing; the witness that 'Jesus is Victor." This is the significant fact on any interpretation. Blumhardt's perception may have been mythological EN29

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(and this is surely better than no perception at all), but he saw in the condition of this girl, and later of many others, the presence of the opposing world of the absolutely abnormal and objectively unseemly, i.e., the satanic darkness in relation to which there must not be adaptation into something willed by God but revolt, protest and angry negation. And the basis and power of this negation are for him simply the name of Jesus-not really understood or evoked in a magical way-as the essence of God's reaction against the contesting of His creative will and of His creatures displayed in sickness. Blumhardt realised, in contrast to all older Protestantism and basically to the whole of Western Christendom, that in this name not just a psychic but a historical and even cosmic decision is made, and a question not only of disposition but of power is raised, which all those who confess it must face. Blumhardt missed even in the Jesus of contemporary Pietists the repugnance of the real Jesus at the grave of Lazarus and His will to help and fight and reign. Blumhardt took up the struggle because he was bound and liberated by this royal repugnance of Jesus. Hence the famous words with which he opened the contest in the case of Gottliebin: "Fold your hands and pray: LordJesus, help me! We have seen long enough what the devil does; now we shall see what the Lord Jesus can do." Hence the statement in his later account of the matter: "I was ashamed before myself and my Saviour ... to give in to the devil. 1 often had to ask myself. Who is the Lord?, and, trusting Him who is the Lord, 1 always heard the inward call to advance. For it must lead to a good end, just as it plunges into the deepest depths if it is not true thatJesus had crushed the serpent's head." The relationship between sin and sickness and repentance and healing was clearly seen by him, but as a two-sided and therefore hopeful relationship. Ernst Gaugler U. C. Blumhardt, 1945, p. 36) has rightly stressed that Blumhardt, who was not really an "enthusiast," had no interest in producing anything new in what he said and did in this connexion, whether new insights (for it was not he who regarded demonology as particularly notable from the standpoint of this conflict), or new psychomedical methods (he himself made no mention of the details of the conflict and did not found a school for the achievemen t of similar cures), or even a kind of new revelation. "He only read afresh what was already known to him from the old book of biblical truth. He did what every preacher must alwaysadequately or inadequately attempt, namely, to make present the Word of God." He only tried to take seriously the saying in Ps. 7710, which in Luther's translation runs: "The hand of the most High can change everything." This is what we have to learn regarding sickness as a mortal power consequent upon sin. And we must learn it, not from Mrs. Eddy, but from Blumhardt, or, better, from the place where Blumhardt himself learned it.

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But the fact is undeniable that sickness has also another aspect. For health, like life in general, is not an eternal but a temporal and therefore a limited possession. It is entrusted to man, but it does not belong to him. It is to be affirmed and willed by man as a gift from God, yet not in itself and absolutely, but in the manner and compass in which He gives it. We have defined health as the power to be as man exercised in the powers of the vital functions of soul and body. And we have defined sickness as the impairing of this power, as crippling and hampering weakness. We have seen that in the antithesis, contrast and conflict of these two determinations of human life we have to do with a real event in the existence of the real man. And we have first attempted to evaluate this event from the angle from which it presents itself as the collision of normal being, as willed, created and ordered by God, with its negation, so that it is brought under the threat of abnormality

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and even destruction. On this view it can be understood only as man's encounter with the realm of death and therefore the experience of God's judgment. We have been able to describe the required human attitude, the will to live and to be healthy, only in terms of the resistance and conflict of faith and prayer appealing to the grace and gracious power of God. And if we have now to draw attention to another aspect of the same matter, there can be no question-we are irresistibly prevented by the biblical witness concerning health and sickness-of looking away again from this first aspect or even trying to relativise or weaken it. Sickness is one of the elements in the situation of man as he has fallen victim to nothingness through his transgression, as he is thus referred wholly to the mercy of God, but as he is summoned by this reference to hope and courage and conflict. Not a single word of what we have said in this connexion can be retracted or even limited. It must not be lost sight of or forgotten in whatever we may have to add. What is there to be added? Simply that, quite apart from his transgression, quite apart from his abandonment to the power of nothingness, and quite apart from the consequent visitation of God's judgment upon him, the life of man, and therefore his health as the strength to be as man in the exercise of the powers of all his vital functions of life, is a life which even according to God's good will as Creator, and therefore normally and naturally, begins and ends and is therefore limited. Man does not possess the power to be as man in the same way as God has His power to be as God, nor does he have power over his vital functions as God has His power as Creator, Ruler and merciful Deliverer of His creature. It does not belong to him to be and to live as God. Rather, he may see the goodness of God the Creator in the fact that to his life and strength and powers a specific space is allotted, i.e., a limited span. He may and should exercise them in it and not in the field of the unlimited. They are adapted for it, for development and application within it. Within its confines he may and should be as man in their possession and exercise. Within its confines he stands before God, and at the limit of this span God is mightily for him and is his hope. Just because it is limited, it is a kind of natural and normal confirmation of the fact that by God's free grace man may live through Him and for Him, with the commission to be as man in accordance with the measure of his strength and" powers, but not under the intolerable destiny of having to give sense, duration and completeness to his existence by his own exertions and achievements, and therefore in obvious exclusion of the view that he must and may and can by his own strength and powers eternally maintain, assert and confirm himself, attaining for himself his own dignity and honour. The eternal God Himself guarantees all this, and tells him that He does so by giving him a life that is temporal and therefore limited. In this way it always remains in His hand both in its majesty and in its littleness. In itself and as such this fact cannot be an object of complaint, protest or rebellion, nor can the fact that man must make the concrete discovery that his life and therefore his health and strength and powers are not an unlimited reality, but that he is

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~ 55. Freedom for Life impeded in their possession and exercise, that weakness is real as well as strength, that there is destruction as well as construction, obstruction as well as development. This is all the more terrible because it isjust from this direction that we find ourselves threatened by death and judgment. But is it really surprising and shocking in itself? The life of man, his commission, and his strength to fulfil it, are not limited accidentally but by God, and therefore not to his destruction but to his salvation. Inevitably, then, he always in some way comes up concretely against this boundary of his life. Inevitably he must grow old and decline. Inevitably he must concretely encounter his Creator and Lord and therefore God's omnipotence and mercy. But is it merely a question of necessity? In the correct sense, is it not true to say that, no less than in his unimpeded movement within these confines, this is also a possibility. May it not be that genuine freedom to live can and must be concretely realised in the fact that in the impeding and impairing of his life he is shown that neither his life nor he himself is in his own hand, but that he is in God's hand, that he is surrounded by Him on all sides, that he is referred wholly to Him, but also that he is reliably upheld by Him? Does not this freedom begin at the very point where we are confronted by the hard actuality of the insight that "Christ will be our consolation"? But what if sickness as the concrete form of weakness, of destruction, of the impairing of his strength and powers, of growing old and declining, is the hard actuality which ushers in this genuinely liberating insight? What if it is not only the forerunner and messenger of death and judgment, but also, concealed under this form, the witness to God's creative goodness, the forerunner and messenger of the eternal life which God has allotted and promised to the man who is graciously preserved and guided by Him within the confines of his time?

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Do we not have a penetration beyond the whole aspect of death and judgment in the prayer of Ps. 9012: "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom," and even more expressivelyin Ps. 394f.: "Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am. Behold, thou hast made my days as an hand breath; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Surely every man walketh in a vain shew; surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them. And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee." And if there is prayer of this kind, is it only the experience of death andjudgment, and not also of the answering of this prayer even in the midst of death and judgment, that is described in Ps. 10223: "He weakened my strength in the way; he shortened my days"? How could it occur to man to number his days, and to realise how transitory he is, if he did not concretely experience the breaking of his strength in the way? And apart from this how could he come to confess that God is his hope?

It is surely clear that there can be no question of anything but a bold penetration beyond the form of death and judgment, when we maintain that what we know as sickness has in deep concealment another form, in which it reflects not only the power of the devil or even the wrath of God but also the divine benevolence. We surely cannot think and speak of this lightly, nor can it be

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meant as an alternative to the first view of sickness. All that can be meant is that when the hard and bitter shell of the first aspect is broken, when therefore the fight of faith and prayer and action is manfully and with God's help victoriously fought against sickness, it finally contains and reveals this kernel, namely, that it is good for man to live a limited and impeded life, and to be aware of the fact that, when he has exercised and used his strength and powers in obedience, he must return them to the One who has lent them to him. There is still no question of capitulation to sickness, far less to the realm of death manifested in it. But there is certainly capitulation to God who is the Lord even of sickness and the realm of death, and who is gracious to man even in the fact that He permits him to fall sick, to be sick and perhaps even to die of sickness. Again, there is no question of being no longer terrified at death or of taking lightly the judgment of God revealed in it. But there is certainly a recognition and apprehension in suffering and dying as such of a natural happening now necessarily concealed by death and judgmen t, of a form of the creative goodness of God beyond death and judgment, of the objectively near promise of His free grace. Again, there is no question of giving up the will for health and the fight against sickness. But there is certainly a full and true readiness to become and be well exclusively through and for God, which must necessarily consist in quiet endurance of the present and perhaps triumphant sickness. Strictly speaking, therefore, the necessary augmentation of what we have already said can consist only in the recollection that, if this fight is to be fought rightly and finally, it will not exclude but include patience. Sickness in so far as it is still present, the impairing, disturbing and destroying of life in so far as these are an event and cannot be removed by faith and prayer and the most manful fighting, have therefore to be "borne" in the sense that they are drawn by God-who is present in this way, too, as Lord and Victor-into what He wills from and with man, and what in its entirety, because it comes from Him, cannot be evil but only good, and cannot finally be pain but only joy. Joy! When we say this we utter a key-word which must be taken up in its own context and which will lead us a step further. The will for life is also the will for joy, delight and happiness. It would be senseless for us not to apply the question concerning the obedience required of man to this determination of his will for life as well, for us ashamedly to turn our back upon it as it were and therefore to presuppose that we can speak of obedience only where this determination is excluded. In every real man the will for life is also the will for joy. In everything that he wills, he wills and intends also that this, too, exist for him in some form. He strives for different things with the spoken or unspoken but very definite if unconscious intention of securing for himself this joy. He does not merely wish to satisfy his impulses or to be well. Even the most primitive of men does not really wish no more. Nor does he merely want to work and to contend for that which is good, true and beautiful. Even at the highest level, he does not merely want "to love God and man." Even the most objective man of action, the strictest scholar, the most serious theologian burning perhaps

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with asceticism or philanthropy, does not really want only this, not to speak of artists who are usually the sincerest in this matter. No, in and with all these things, or side by side with them, at certain intervals or interludes, he also wants to have a little, and perhaps more than a little, enjoyment. It is hypocrisy to hide this from oneself. And the hypocrisy would be at the expense of the ethical truth that he should will to enjoy himself, just as he should will to eat, drink, sleep, be healthy, work, stand for what is right and live in fellowship with God and his neighbour. A person who tries to debar himself from joy is certainly not an obedient person. And the question what it means to will to be happy in obedience is in its place just as serious, and its correct answering is just as important and as little self-evident, as any ethical question.

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It is astonishing, and certainly does not need to be verified by quotations, how many references there are in the Old and New Testaments to delight, joy, bliss, exultation, merrymaking and rejoicing, and how emphatically these are demanded from the Book of Psalms to the Epistle to the Philippians. The binding seriousness of the covenant relationship between Yahweh and His people, the gloom of the indictment continually brought against this people, the terror of the divine judgment proclaimed and executed on them, the final call to repentance with which John the Baptist introduces the New Testament, and at the heart of the New Testament the darkness of the day on which the Son of God is nailed to the cross-all these do not signify a suppression of the joy to which there is constant reference, nor of the summons to rejoice, but it seems rather as if this joy and summons arise from these dark places, and that what is declared from this centre is glad tidings. Why? Because God the Creator and Lord of life acts and speaks here, taking the lost cause of man out of his hand, making it His own, intervening majestically, mercifully and wisely for him. Now obviously what arises at this dark source is not a random or arbitrary joy. It is not unqualified, but supremely qualified. What is here regarded asjoy, and is this, has obviously passed through a catalysator. It has been destroyed on the one hand, and reconstituted on the other. But it has been reconstituted, and validated, and even raised to the level of a command. Christ is risen; He is truly risen. Joy is now joy before the Lord and in Him. It is joy in His salvation, His grace, His law,His whole action. But it is now genuine, earthly, humanjoy: thejoy of harvest, wedding, festival and victory; the joy not only of the inner but also of the outer man; the joy in which one may and must drink wine as well as eat bread, sing and playas well as speak, dance as well as pray. We must not forget the catalysator without which it cannot be the obedient joy demanded. But we must also remember that the man who hears and takes to heart the biblical message is not only not permitted but plainly forbidden to be anything but merry and cheerful.

What does joy mean? Our starting-point is the fact that life is movement in time-the movement of continual striving and desire for small or great ends, for new or distant goals, as guided by specific ideas, wishes, relationships, obligations and hopes. Joy is one of the forms in which this movement is arrested for a moment or a few moments, not on its objective but on its subjective side, in the awareness in which man experiences himself in the fulfilment of this movement, in the self-consciousness in which he accompanies, as it were, the progress of his existence, in his attitude to the events and conditions which the course of his life brings in its train. Such an inner arrest may take the form of temporary abandonment to the changes and circumstances of life, of acquies50

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cence in them tant bien que mal, in the recognition that there is no option. Yet while joy is also a temporary arrest of this kind, it is more than resignation and different from it. Again, such an arrest may take the form of the satisfaction in which a man is in such a position in relation to his existence that, for all the questions, cares and objections involved, he can leave it as it is and confidently and sincerely affirm it. Yetjoy is more than this, and different from it. It is the true form of every such arrest. For man has joy when there is in his life great or small fulfilment of his conscious or unconscious desires, cravings and strivings, when an event or change occurs or a state is achieved which he can greet and welcome because openly or secretly he had been waiting for it. Man has joy when for once he has reached his goal, or at least one goal. His life as movement in time has led him to a point where it gives him no more trouble but presents and offers itself as a gift, and indeed as a gift of that which he has conceived of, or at least groped after or dreamed of, as genuine life (if not in its totality, at least from a specific standpoint), of that which he has promised himself from life. Life smiles at him, not scornfully and ironically (as it can also do) but with friendliness, not as something unknown but in some sense wellknown, because he has always meant it to turn out like this and he can now smile at it for once. Joy is really the simplest form of gratitude. When we are joyful, time stands still for a moment or moments because it has fulfilled its meaning as the space of our life-movement and, engaged in this movement, we have attained in one respect at least the goal of our striving. And the greater our joy is, the more unnecessary it will seem to us that there should be more time and movement. We have already ceased to rejoice if we find it natural that it should nevertheless continue. In so far and for so long as we know true joy, we desire only the duration of this fulfilment, of life in the form of a gift, and therefore of the joyful moment. This is achieved, of course, only in the case of what is called in Holy Scripture eternal joy and felicity in perfect fellowship with God. But this one instance has an exemplary significance. The desire for duration, even if realised only in a single case, is an essential characteristic of all joy as such. Why? Quite simply because joy is gratitude for an effected fulfilment. Faust is sceptical, and swears that he will never say to the moment: "0 linger, thou art so beautiful!" But Faust is not a legitimate witness in this matter. He obviously does not know, or at least according to Goethe's creative vision and presentation he is not allowed to know, what joy is. Nor must we overlook the fact that it is in the process of making a contract with the devil that he takes this oath, and that in the second part he finally seems to experience what joy is, and therefore pronounces the words, so that in respect of the claim of alljoy for duration Schiller is right: "No hour strikes for the happy man," and even Nietzsche on this occasion: "All delight demands eternity."

But the craving of joy for duration is of interest to us only for the sake of its nature. Our present question is whether there is a will for joy, and if so, how is it constituted if it is a good and obedient will, if the desired joy is, within its

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S 55. Freedom for Life limits, fulfilment and therefore different from a vain and empty and evil pleasure, if it is the genuine act of that simplest gratitude. It is tempting but over-hasty to say that we cannot willjoy but only have it. In reality the truth is-inevitably-that only in fleeting moments do we have joy, namely, joy at something, the experience of fulfilment itself and as such. We are poor fools if we rely on this. "I rejoice" usually means-there is nothing wrong in this-"I rejoice in anticipation." Most joy is anticipatory. Even in the experience of the fulfilmen t, and particularly when this experience is genuine, it usually changes immediately into anticipatory joy, i.e., joy in expectation of further fulfilment. In this respect, it normally has something of an eschatological character. And to this extent we do right to ask concerning the right will for joy. Our first point in this respect is that it is certainly required of man that he should continually hold himself in readiness for joy. To be sure, the biblical commands to rejoice mean more than this. They proclaim the irruption, event and presence ofjoy itself, and indeed of perfect and eternaljoy. They introduce this. Hence they are really heard and understood only as and when they pull man directly in to joy, this joy. In this respect they go far beyond all ethics. But they also have an ethical content, and to this extent they tell us that we should hold ourselves in readiness for joy.

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This command is really comprehended in that of respect for life. The point is that life is a gift bestowed upon us by God. It is not a mere fact or fate, let alone an imposed misfortune. As the work of God the Creator it is a gift of His grace and benevolence and glorious purpose for man. How can man live it in obedience if his only desire is as it were to roll it off, if he merely tries to execute it as that movement in time, if he is not prepared that it should reveal and confirm and present and offer itself as the divine gift of grace which it always is, if he is not able continually to rejoice in anticipation of something? But this "something" means the moments in which his life manifests itself to him as God's gift of grace, in which something of fulfilment shines out in the midst of the movement experienced and executed by him, in which gratitude that he may live breaks through all his running and striving and fighting and struggling. In respect for life he is necessarily confident that there will be such momen ts. He is prepared and ready for the arrival of such moments and therefore for joy. He is ready, then, not merely to hurry on with his own work, but to pause in gratitude for what life really is as the gift of God before and after and over all his own works. To this extent joy has an affinity with what we earlier described as the holy day that interrupts, concludes and above all initiates the working week. And the required readiness for joy might in this sense be regarded as merely an application of the Sabbath commandment.

We can close ourselves to joy. We can harden ourselves against it. We can be caught in the rut of life in movement. We can try to be merely busy and therefore slothful in the expectation of fulfilments. We can regard life as such a

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solemn matter that there is no desire for celebration. We can look upon an icy seriousness as the highest duty and virtue. On the basis of experienced disappointments we can try to establish that our only right is to bitterness. Is it not obvious that we can never really have joy? Does not joy really consist only in the joy of anticipation? But the fact that we actually become joyless is only a symptom that in self-embitterment we do violence to life and to God as its Creator. And this is the very thing which must not happen at this point. It has also to be considered, however, that the readiness required of us must really be readiness for joy. To be joyful is to expect that life will reveal itself as God's gift of grace, that it will present and offer itself in provisional fulfilments of its meaning and intention as movement. To be joyful means to look out for opportunities for gratitude. To be glad in the sense required is distinguished already from vain and empty and evil pleasure by the fact that it is the hope for a receiving and not the covetous glance at a grasping, at an event to be enacted and established by ourselves, at a condition which we shall construct in some way and with some kind of apparatus. We stand here before the dangerous cliff of every willed joy. In true joy there can never lack great or small enterprises to make it possible, to prepare and accomplish it. And it is in this inward and indeed outward preparation that joy is usually experienced most intensively as the joy of anticipation. But we must consider carefully that real joy comes and is present like the Holy Spirit. Indeed, it is really when the Holy Spirit comes and is present that one experiences true joy. But this means that joy comes and is present as it lists, and no one knows whence it comes or whither it goes. We can create opportunities for it in anticipatory joy, but we cannot create or construct or produce or force it by various plans and measures. When joys prepared without remembering this do at length arrive and are experienced, unless a miracle happens, they are spoilt. They are still-births or miscarriages. They are not periods 6f rest before gratefully acknowledged and experienced fulfilments but restless continuations of life as toil and striving. They are not sweet but bitter to the taste. They do not call for duration but basically only for a swift and merciful passing. They are not oases in the desert, but themselves desert. At this point a good deal might be said about various forms of human festivity:domestic, social and national occasions; personal and private celebrations enjoyed in solitude or a select company; and even the Christian feasts with which the Church-did it really know what it was doing?-has so richly furnished the so-called Christian year in competition with their worldly counterparts. Are all these festivals really necessary because real joy, the grateful acceptance of a fulfilment, is expected? But if they are not necessary, since this expectation is absent, and very few among the celebrants know what joy is and therefore possess real anticipatary joy, why are they celebrated? Festivals are foreseen joys, and are therefore organised. Why should there not be festivals? Assuming that joy is really foreseen, why should they not be planned, prepared and arranged? But why are they so far from festive in far too many cases? Why do we have to persuade ourselves and others that they are? Why are we so often glad when everything has passed off without too many damaging and annoying incidents and we can resume our customary way of life? Why are usually the most successful

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~ 55. Freedom for Life festivals those which are not foreseen and arranged but which we simply celebrate as they occur, falling as it were from heaven? Obviously because joy cannot be induced by any labour however skilful or assiduous, or any organisation however careful or elaborate. Not even a genuine anticipatory joy which we might bring to the organisation can guarantee the coming and presence of real joy, and how much less when the anticipatory joy is not genuine! Festivals are like regular and planned holidays, which can be disturbed and made a burden and finally ruined by all the preceding worrying about practical details when they might come down to us like precious vessels borne by angels and take free shape and be genuinely enjoyed. We cannot deny that in spite of all the preparations there are real holidays and therefore real festivals. But we must perhaps consider a radical cure, in the form of a resolute abolition or suspension of most of our customary and particularly our recurrent festivals, if poor humanity and especially poor Christendom is generally to learn again to celebrate genuine festivals and therefore to experience the corresponding festal joy.

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In further consideration of the question of the joy demanded, it must also be said that we can have joy, and therefore will it, only as we give it to others. Like health, joy is also a social matter. There may be cases where a man can be really merry in isolation. But these are exceptional and dangerous. To be sure, life is a gift to each individually. But it is made to each in his relationship with his fellows. And as man cannot live it alone, he cannot basically claim as his own the manifestation of its character as a divine gift of grace, nor can he be basically grateful for its fulfilments in any kind of solitude and egotism. It certainly gives us ground to suspect the nature of his joy as real joy if he does not desire-"Rejoice with me"-that at least one or some or many others, as representatives of the rest, should share this joy. And it gives us ground for more than suspicion ifhe wills that they should not do so. We may succeed in willing joy exclusively for ourselves, but we have to realise that in this case, unless a miracle happens (and miracles are difficult to imagine for such a purpose), this joy will not be true, radiant and sincere, and even less so the malicious joy which is actually directed against others. But if we will that others should share our joy, this means that we do not want merely to have it, but to give and spread it. We accept responsibility that others should have it too. But this is by no means easy. For it is not enough simply to give them a share in what givesjoy to us. This is no doubt praiseworthy, but how do I know whether what givesjoy to me will do so to them? Nor is it really enough merely to think and do something which we know might be an occasion of joy to some. This apparently magnanimous undertaking might well be only a new form of my own joy in which I am not really concerned about others. What is really demanded is that I ask myself from the standpoint of the other what will give him joy, and that I then consider this and put it into effect. It is here that the most important decisions are made in this matter and that there can be the greatest joy but also the most profound disappointment. Joy shared with another, or with a company which aims at mutual enjoyment, is a costly matter, and upon this depends the secret of a successful festival as a genuinely joyous occasion. For all can be robbed of joy by the fact that even in company, in apparent fellowship and with reciprocal effort each wills to have only his own joy. In this case

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what is willed is not the joy commanded, and we need not be surprised if, at the moment when there should be a gay feast, after the long preparation there can be no real joy but only its spectre. A further criterion of the true will for joy is its sovereignty in relation to motives, opportunities and objects. Those who seek true joy are not tied to certain modes of joy. They need not expect and seek it always along the same lines. They are capable of manifold joys. They know the great freedom of life itself, which allows its fulfilments to shine through in different ways. Hence they are simply grateful for what comes and for the way in which it comes. They do not want to impose a law on life, joy or themselves. They are sincere and inventive on all sides. They can leap and they do so, not arbitrarily, but in relation to the different things which encounter them. There is no compulsion. But how many possibilities there are when there is genuine gratitude for genuine fulfilment! As they can rejoice in many things in this sense, they are free in a field where there exist so many stupid traditions, routines, constraints, general and individual prejudices, and therefore disappointments and missed and bungled opportunities. We may therefore recognise the true joy commanded by the fact that it is the joy of those who are free in this sense. Perhaps it is as well to draw specific attention to the banal truth that the will for joy cannot be guided by the quantity of its possible causes and objects but must be a readiness for the small and smallest joys. For those who do not honour the small joys are not worthy of the great, and it may well be that in a given case a very little joy which we do not miss (or bestow upon another) is at the moment by far the highest possible fulfilment. There are materialjoys, and we have no cause to avoid them when they come or arrogantly to act as if they were not joys. But all the same we do well to remember that even in circles and with persons where one would not expect it they can gain a strange and shameful predominance. Man can very quickly become trivial. Or rather, the deep trivialitywhich is to be found in every man can very rapidly rise to the surface if he allows himself to veer or to be steered in this direction, i.e., that of the plate and the bottle. It is thus understandable that there are many who lay great restraints upon themselves in this respect, and if they avoid exaggeration they are in better case than those who take the opposite direction. Well it is for those whose eyes and ears are open to the aesthetic side of existence! We can deepen, develop, educate and train our receptiveness and taste in this field, and if we do we shall never be at a loss for causes and objects ofjoy. Why should not the will for joy consist in a smaller or greater effort in this direction? But again, there is an exclusiveness and totalitarianism of aestheticism whose representatives do not usually give the impression of happy, free and cheerful human beings, so that we prefer to avoid them as those who are mostly incapable of spreading much or anyjoy in their surroundings. We can experience joy in nature and in intercourse with our fellows, and there is something very far wrong if we are blind or deaf to either or both, or if in the search for joy we alternate between a flight from nature to human society or vice versa in a flight from vile man to a supposedly pure nature. For alljoys sought and supposedly seized in such flights have a very doubtful character and can hardly become real joys. Finally, we must not forget that those who are not under compulsion but free in this regard will not only seekjoy somewhere apart as the joy of Sundays or holidays but also in the midst of their everyday work. And perhaps it is to be found here in its purest and strongest

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S 55. Freedom for Life form. It is true that nowadays not every kind of work can givejoy, but scholarship and art and the work of skilled artisans and, of course, farmers offer vast fields in which man may often enough, even if not always,work with joy, and which he should shamefacedly leave, as one who is obviously unsuitable because he dishonours them, if he cannot experience there any joy at all. Is it necessary to say that this is supremely true of the work of the minister?

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A further criterion of true joy derives from its relation to the remaining determinations of human life. If joy is a gratefully perceived and an enjoyed fulfilment, then as an extraordinary event, as that transitory arrest, as the attainment of a smaller or greater culmination of existence, it is an intensification, strengthening, deepening and elevation of the whole awareness of life which as such is necessarily more thanjoy. Constant sunshine, as is well known, is not desirable, and can dry up the sources of water and therefore cause drought. In no sense do we live by the fulfilments which life has to offer here and now. We can only live with them. They can only serve to refresh, console and encourage us. And it is a further criterion of their genuineness whether they render us this service or not. There are also-and this must be pondered in relation to the will for joy and the selection of what we think will please uscertain joys which mean nothing but confusion and disturbance for the rest of life, which cause weariness, satiety and ennui, which weaken, externalise and reduce the awareness of life and which make those desirous of enjoyment sadder instead of gladder, more fearful instead of more courageous, more restless instead of more restful. It is manifest that these are not real but demonic pseudojoys. And we have to ask ourselves from this standpoint what it is that really gives us joy and what kind of opportunities we really want to create for ourselves. We cannot, for instance, will to have joy at the cost of our health, since the preservation of the latter as the strength to be as man is a presupposition with whose imperilment and surrender we saw off the branch on which we are sitting and the jeopardising and loss of which compromise all other joys. Again, we cannot be joyful at the expense of our work. That is to say,in willing to rejoice we cannot lose sight of our work or forget it. Its transitory arrest is a blessing. Its toil and troubles may for once be left behind. But the work itself must remain and have significance even as a warning in respect of what may be real joy. Those who do not return willingly to work afterwards have undoubtedly rejoiced in vain and illusorily. And the cheerful continuation of work is a necessary presupposition of the possibility and anticipation of further joy. We have already touched on the point that we cannot be joyful at the cost of our fellows, but only with them, and as we give them joy too. There exists a whole sphere of so-called pleasure which cannot really give any pleasure, for the simple reason that it means the very opposite of pleasure for many others, and therefore thinks, proceeds and acts too nonhumanly for us to expect any effective or serious renewal even of our own awareness. It can all be summed up, of course, in the reminder that we cannot have joy at the expense of our conscience, our avvEtS7]aLS EN30 or agreement with God. We cannot have it in accidental and arbitrary acts, nor in virtue of the future forgiveness of sins, as if we had a cheque EN30

conscience

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on this account in our pocket. We can be joyful in the freedom of the divine promise which is valid for those who keep His commandments well or badly, who know that they are responsible to Him, who first and last will to rejoice in God Himself as the Creator and Lord of life, as the Giver and Revealer of all its provisional fulfilments.

Our last consideration but one is that, since our life as a creaturely life is not our own but belongs to God who gives it to us, and since we have forfeited it because we have rebelled against him and can live only in the power of His mercy, it is obviously outside our power to try to discover unequivocally and conclusively what constitutes the real pleasure of our real life, and in what the fulfilments which summon us to gratitude actually consist. We think we should seek them here or there because this thing or that appears as light or alleviation, as warmth, benefit, refreshment, consolation and encouragement, promising us renewal and the attainment of that which hovers before us as the true goal of all that we do and refrain from doing. But do we really know this true goal and therefore our true joy? God knows it. God decides it. But this means that our will for joy, our preparedness for it, must be wide open in this direction, in the direction of His unknown and even obscure disposing, if it is to be the right and good preparedness commanded in this matter. It should not be limited by the suffering of life, because even life's suffering (or what we regard as such) comes from God, the very One who summons us to rejoice. He has given to the cosmos and therefore to our life an aspect of night as well as day, and we have to remember that His goodness as Lord and Creator is the same and no less in the one than the other. Again, He judges the world and therefore our life. He has done this once for all inJesus Christ, and thus given the cosmos its hope and our life its promise. But the cosmos still stands, and our life still proceeds, under the shadow of the cross on which this judgment has been accomplished for the salvation of the world and our own. We must not be surprised and angry that we live in this shadow. We must not object to the fact that we have to seek the manifestation of God's glory and the glory of our own life in the concealment of this shadow. We must also realise that all the provisional light which we believe we can recognise and enjoy as such really breaks forth from this shadow, that all the little fulfilments in which we may rejoice are only reflections of the great fulfilment which has taken place in the darkness into which God Himself entered for us in His Son, and that every recognition and experience of these fulfilments is only an advance towards the comprehensive and conclusive revelation of this great fulfilment. But this means in practice that the real test of our joy of life as a commanded and therefore a true and good joy is that we do not evade the shadow of the cross of Jesus Christ and are not unwilling to be genuinely joyful even as we bear the sorrows laid upon us. What if the true, the strongest, the most refreshing and enduring temporal fulfilments await us at the very point where in our simplicity, which might well be our blindness, we will not seek them, in the repulses, obstructions and disturbances which we meet, in our confrontation with the dark aspect of life, and even more so in our confrontation with the

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death which has come into the world through sin and therefore with the divine judgment, in short, in the great Yeswhich in deep concealment God has spoken and realised in and with His No? It is not a matter of limiting joy, or of having to be prepared not only for joy but also sometimes for the "apathy" of the Stoics. It is not a matter of readiness for mere resignation or satisfaction. These may be good virtues too, but they are pagan rather than Christian virtues. It is a matter of the continuation of joy itself even in sorrow. It is a matter of the proof of our joy in the fact that our capacity for enjoyment shows itself to be also a capacity for suffering, a readiness to accept with reverence and gratitude and therefore with joy the mystery and wonder of the life given to us by God, its beauty and radiance, and the blessing, refreshment, consolation and encouragement which it radiates as the gift of God, even where it presents itself to us in its alien form. Whether our preparedness for joy has the maturity with which to persevere even in what we think we must regard the depths of life, is from this standpoint the criterion in the question as to its obedient character in what we think to be the high points of life. Only if it is obedience as it perseveres in the former is it obedience in the latter, and we are thus free to rejoice where it is not difficult but easy for us to be joyful. For we then cling even in the former to what God and not we ourselves consider to be our true joy. And now our final point brings us back to our definition of joy as a provisional fulfilment of life received with gratitude. Everything that we recognise and experience asjoy here and now, whether easy or difficult, whether on the bright side of life or the dark, is a provisional fulfilment. This is the theological basis of the fact that our joy has always its proper seat in anticipatory joy. All our joy is actually anticipatory joy even when it exists and apparently is found in its supreme form. How then can it be less joy, or be less recognised and experienced as such? The whole of life is provisional. It can be lived only in expectation of eternal life, i.e., in expectation of the revelation of its union with God's eternal life. The same is also true of the great and small expectations in which we may continually rejoice, and of their more or less complete fulfilments. We need not be joyful in vain here and now. There are already here and now fulfilments that may be received as such with gratitude. We have tried to understand the ethics of this acceptance and the criteria which must be remembered if it is to be in order. But these fulfilments, too, are provisional. This is shown already by the fact that in spite of Faust they call for duration, then actually pass, but then call for new fulfilments, and if they are rightly accepted, form the basis of further fulfilments. But it is also shown in the limitation, fragmentariness and frailty which are peculiar to them and to all our yearnings. It is shown finally in the fact that so much ethics is necessary for their acceptance. In this sense all ethics, particularly as the ethics of respect for life at this climactic point, can only be provisional or interim ethics. In its final word, therefore, it must point away beyond itself. In all the provisional forms in which we actualise it here and now the will for joy must be the will for

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the eternal joy and felicity which in all cases of joy is the only one in which it can be lasting and complete joy, the definitive revelation of the fulfilment of life accomplished for us and addressed to us by God. But what does the will for joy mean in this context? In this context it can only be the faith, sustained by hope, which clings to what has been accomplished as the future in every present, and therefore to God Himself, who is the source of every good thing, who from and to all eternity, and therefore in time here and now, is kindly intentioned and has dealt, deals and will deal kindly with us, so that we may be grateful to Him. Yes, here and now, for everything here and now is the great prelude to what will one day be revealed and constitute the goal.

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Paul Gerhardt is right: "Go forth, my heart, and seek thou joy!" The whole hymn should be cited, verse by verse. All the verses should be read over again and taken to heart. But in view of our concluding remarks we may quote just the one: Methinks if here thou art so fair, Allowing us with loving care On this poor earth to tread, Then what shall be beyond this world, Where heaven's pavilions are unfurled, And golden towers outspread?

If the respect for life required of man is an affirmation of life, this must consist further in his resolute will to be himself. This concrete aspect of the divine command derives, of course, from the fact that it is not a general truth, rule or precept but always has a historical character and is always a particular challenge to a specific individual. He who hears it perceives that it is he who is meant and whom it concerns-Thou! As this Thou he lives before God and for God, and therefore with and for his fellow-man. And if he hears God's command, he is always summoned thereby to confess this Thou, to take himself seriously as the Thou as which he lives before and for God, and in this sense to be himself. Respect for life must also include this will. It must also be each man's respect for the individuality in which he may "be alive" before and for God. It must be his willingness and readiness to live his life as his own, i.e., to live it in the way in which it is uniquely allotted and loaned to him by God, "according to the law of its beginning." This formula is not unambiguous. It does not concern the "I" or "Self' which a man thinks he can find and possess and know in himself, but which he can really possess and know only in a very limited and partial way. To raise this to the level of a law, to affirm and take oneself seriously in this sense, to live in this sense one's own particular life, is the very thing which is not demanded but prohibited by the command of God. Let us take a brief glance at the young Schleiermacher (in the secon,d of his two Monologen of 1800): "Thus has been opened to me what is now my highest view.It has become clear to me that every man should depict humanity in his own way, in his own mixture of its elements, in order that it may reveal itself in every mode, and in the fulness of infinity everything be actualised which can emerge from its womb. The thought alone has uplifted and separ-

59

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S 55. Freedom for Life ated me from the vulgar and uncultured things around to a divine task which can rejoice in a particular form and direction; and the free act which accompanies it has gathered and inwardly united the elements of human nature into a distinctive being." It is a matter for each to discover which realm of humanity belongs to him and where the common basis for its expansion and limitation is to be sought, to measure all the contents of his own being, to discover at all points his own limitations, to foresee "prophetically" what he is and might become, and finally to project himself imaginatively into a thousand strange cultures in order the more distinctly to recognise and express his own. These are instructions which properly translated and interpreted may readily be regarded as those of Christian ethics. But in the sense in which the Romantic Schleiermacher meant them they presuppose a sovereignty of man in which the singularity and uniqueness of the life allotted and loaned to him by God are hidden, so that he cannot possibly penetrate to the commanded respect for this life and therefore the determination to be himself. And this is even more true of the views and efforts a century later of the so-called Neo-Romanticists, e.g., the "personality culture" ofJ. Miiller. Yet we cannot deny that the exponents of such slogans and endeavours, of all that might be summed up under the concept of humanistic individualism, were obviously trying to look in the direction which now concerns us, namely, to the self-affirmation required of man by God.

The object of the commanded respect and affirmation is indeed the life which God has granted to every man in its uniqueness and individuality. All human disobedience includes the denial of orientation on the Thou as which God has created man and addressed man, and therefore the attempt to hide oneself from God, as also from oneself, behind a generality and therefore in anonymity. In every general and therefore anonymous self-understanding man is necessarily engaged in conflict against God. And all the judgment and the faithfulness and grace of God include also the inexorable: "Adam, where art thou?" (Gen. 39), the permission, admonition and command that man should come to himself and always be himself. In the last resort all obedience to the command of God must begin with man's confession that he is the one whom God addresses in His command. Before God, and as the one whom God addresses, every man is sui generisEN31, an original, and he must will to be this. Yet it must not be a matter of the assertion of his I, but primarily of its surrender, and only then of its regaining in the Thou as the self created and addressed by God. This "Thou-I" is the human "soul," the man who lives by the Spirit of God. It deserves and demands respect and affirmation. In it man is summoned to be himself. Oddly enough, therefore, we have to recognise this summons in those places of the New Testament which at first sight seem not only to limit but to eliminate the will of man to be himself, by speaking in terms of what seems to be an expropriation of the I. This is seen in Jesus' proclamation to the people and His disciples of the self-denial which everyone who follows Him must accept. "For whosoever will save his life (his ~vX~ EN32) shall lose it; but EN31 EN32

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whosoever shall lose it for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it" (Mk. 834f. and par.). Similarlyjn. 1225 speaks of a love for one's own ~vX~ with which one may deliver it to perdition, and of a hate with which one may preserve it. It is to be noted that the three Synoptists all linked this saying with the other (Mk. 836 and par.) in which Harnack once thought with good reason that he had found a kind of Magna Carta of the message of the infinite value of every human soul: "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul. Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul." According to this second saying it is his own life which is essential and irreplaceable. But in order to keep and preserve it, according to the first saying he must sacrifice it "for my sake and the gospel's" and deny himself. He can be himself in freedom only as he does not will to live for himself. In this connexion we may also quote the well-known Pauline saying: "I live;yet not I, but Christ liveth in me"; and from the other side, from above, the words of the johannine jesus: "Because I live, ye shall live also" On. 1419); "Exceptye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you" On. 653); and: "He that eateth me, even he shall live byrne" On. 657).

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Even the affirmation of life as self-affirmation is thus at root an act of obedience. It cannot possibly be the assertion of a claim and right if it happens in freedom and not in bondage. It is not an act of desire or rebellion or a bid for power. It is supreme responsibility. And fulfilled in this way as an act of obedience, it establishes, fashions and confirms as it should the particular, individual and personal character of man. This is the obvious aim of the adolescent in the well-known transition period from child to man or woman, in the half-tragical half-comical, sometimes very courageous and sometimes deeply depressed struggle for the self against parents, teachers and society, in which various new (or supposedly new) ideas, standpoints and convictions are certainly useful as instruments and weapons, but in which the real concern is simply that he should go his own way, that he should become and be himself. He should certainly do this, but not in an attempt to save his soul in which he will only lose it. He should do it, but not in such a way that he rushes into the cul-de-sacEN33 at whose end he must always have his own way and be himself as impetuously desired in youth, but is very far from achieving true character. He should do his best without confusing the I as which he believes he can possess and know himself with the Thou-I which he is before God. Only the Thou-I is the one who is worth discovery, conflict and affirmation. And only the Thou-I which he cannot become and be except in obedience can acquire character.

Character is not the more or less sharp outline of the I which each thinks he can have and know of himself. just as the I is not himself, so this outline, however sharply impressed, is not the particular form of life, the character, which he is commanded to attain. But as the I can exist only as it is assumed into the Thou-I which is the man himself before God, and the soul only in its attachment and surrender to the Spirit of God who makes it a living soul, so its particular outline-what we usually call the "nature" of the individual-is only material for the specific form of life which as such is the aim of his history, for the foundation, education and strengthening of the character which he does not already possess but which he can only acquire in the history of his life. EN33

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Character is a work of the grace of God on man. He can acquire it only in a very different and more difficult struggle than the one against strange influences, external authorities etc. can ever be-a struggle in which he must take the field not only for but primarily against himself and press on to freedom. It is the struggle of the Spirit against the flesh and for the soul which must be saved at all costs. In this struggle his abstract I is his real enemy. Fortunately, however, he is not left to himself against it, but enabled and equipped by the Word of God that is spoken to him. This is not the place to speak of this struggle. The biblical sayings already mentioned show us in which direction we have to think. For the moment we merely state that it is in this struggle that character is formed-the outline of the particular form of life which he is commanded and which it is therefore meaningful to affirm, will and maintain. "Become what you are," means therefore: "Grow into your character, accept the outline of your particular form of life, the manner of existence which in your special struggle of the Spirit against the flesh will emerge more clearly as your own, as the one which is intended for you, as the form of the life allotted and lent to you by God. For it is in this form that already in the eyes of the eternal God, and therefore in reality, you are what you are. You are thus committed to this form. To will to be in this form is not, therefore, a subjective or egocentric but an obedient willing, in perfect humility but also in perfect courage, no less distinct from indolent inertia than from the arrogant soaring of Icarus, and carrying with it the promise of fulfilment." Character is the particular form in which each is commanded to be. It is his nature as disciplined by his being from God-disciplined in the sense of ordered, directed, restrained but also extended in its limits. No one should make more of himself than he is. Not all human possibilities are the possibilities of all, even though they may seem to be desirable to all. Yet it is not a question of desire but obedience, and therefore each is directed to his own form of life. He will have all his work cut out really to fill out this form. On the other hand, no one should make less of himself than he is. Apparent impossibilities, however strange and daunting they might first appear, can be his most genuine possibilities. On this side, too, it is not a matter of what seems feasible but of what is actually assigned and required. Again-and this is perhaps the most urgent point-no one should try to be or pretend to be different from what he is. We must be careful not to become enamoured of the roles which we see others play even if they seem to be finer and more interesting than our own. We must play our own part, and this alone. A genuine chorister is better than a false soloist, and an honest pupil than a supposed master on his own responsibility; and in any case there are no good or less good roles before God but only the right ones as individually assigned by Him. Character is the distinctive moulding and determining of the course and form of life from the centre of the Thou as which he is addressed by God. It is this address and therefore this Thou which indelibly characterises his life within the current of all creaturely being, so that he is no longer one particle

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in a mass, or one example of a type, but this individual. Romanticism is formally right in its contention that each must discover and express this particular determination of his life. And there is nothing great or small in his life, whether inward or outward, whether thought, word, act or attitude, which is not in some way embraced by this determination, rescued from chance or caprice and given the original direction, form and colour of his own character. Plunges into the strange and comical, into the odd exception or bad subjectivity, are to be feared only in so far as we are still uncertain as to this centre and the orientation from it. And who is ever certain of it? Who has nothing to fear on this score? Yet from this centre there also exists the gift of a discrimination which with growing certainty can select what is genuinely and necessarily our own. It is to be noted that for all its distinctness the original character of each, as the discipline of his nature and distinctive moulding of his course of life in the sense described, is necessarily open, because his origin, the divine address and therefore the Thou as which man stands before God is not a dead but itself a living being and event. God lives, speaks and guides, and therefore man lives before God and his character has a history in which for all its mutability there is increase, decrease, change and novelty, in which his particularity is never merely present but always in process of coming, and will only be fully seen by man in the eternal consummation. If a man regards his character as a final magnitude which he can survey and dispose, and conducts himself accordingly-"I am made that way!"-he is again confusing it with his nature and himself, his soul with his small ego. The Thou-I, the soul that lives by the Spirit of God, the real self, is for all its continuity, discipline and moulding continually on the way to new shores, and will only have and know itself, take itself seriously and express itself on this voyage. For who really knows himself? Who has not continually to discover himself afresh? Who will ever cease to do this? In this respect, too, we must consider the truth that "it doth not yet appear what we shall be" (1 In. 32). Finally, we have to remember that the original character of each individual in the described sense is not an end in itself but can only be the character of his particular service. In the uniqueness of the life of each individual, and in his form of life, there is reflected, but only reflected, the singularity of the selfsufficient life of God. We have said that character is a work of His grace. For it is one of the signs of His participation in the life of His creature. For this reason, and in gratitude for it, it is to be discovered, affirmed, willed and practised by us. For precisely the same reason, however, it cannot be willed and practised for its own sake. The meaning of the uniqueness of the life of every individual person is the uniqueness of the mercy with which God turns to him among all others and wills to sanctify him for Himself, and the uniqueness of the task which he may receive from Him in the totality of the creaturely history on the basis of the covenant which God has made with man. For the sake of God's particular love towards him and his own special service he may and

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~ 55. Freedom for Life should be what he is, and be faithful to himself. The most touching and powerful fidelity which anyone might vow and keep to himself is the greatest infidelity if it tries to be anything but the necessary form of objectivity with which as a creature he must place himself at the disposal of his Creator. From this standpoint, too, the required self-affirmation can be accomplished only as an act of obedience, in relation to its end, and therefore in selflessness. We conclude our survey of the will for life enjoined upon man by defining it rather boldly as the will for power. We mean by this man's determination to make use of his capacity, to come to grips with the advancements and hindrances of life which impinge upon him from without, exploiting the former and resisting or at least enduring the latter. This capacity too, belongs to the actuality of life. And as God calls man to life, as and so long as He addresses him as a living person, He wills that man should not neglect this capacity, the power, strength and force which he has been given, but affirm, will and accept it. What we read in Is. 4029f. has also the force of an imperative: "He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint." And Ps. 11817, too, speaks of the readiness for obedience: "I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord."

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We have presupposed this imperative, and the corresponding obedience, in all that we have said about life as impulsive, healthy, joyful and individual life. If there exists in all these directions a required will for life, then it must be surrounded and sustained by the will of man not to ignore and deny the possibili ty of life lent to him, the power given to him in relation to the powers of the outside world, but to affirm and use it. As he hears the command of God, he must not allow himself to submit to these alien powers, nor to be ruled or driven by them, whether they be favourable or unfavourable toward him. As he hears the command of God, he is summoned to meet them as a subject and therefore with the power that is given to him according to the measure of his ability and capacity. Every man as such possesses a definite measure of the capacity for experience, recognition and action necessary in this encounter. It is this "potential" which is at issue. It belongs to the "talent" which has been entrusted to him as the creature of God, for the administration of which he is responsible and concerning the use of which he is questioned. Everything he does or leaves undone has also the character of fidelity or infidelity, error and deceit or clarity and honesty, use or misuse, in respect of his handling of this potential. Thus it is not an abstract question of power in itself and as such. Not even the omnipotence of God-indeed, this least of all-is power of this kind, power over all things and everything. Only the evil impotence which is an attribute of nothingness, chaos, falsehood and its "powers" is indefinite power,

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power over all things and everything. Unqualified power is per seEN34 the power of negation, destruction and dissolution. The man who is obedient to the command of God self-evidently cannot and will not desire this power. In the 19th century two famous men championed opposing viewsof "power in itself." On the one side F. Nietzsche said that it is the supreme good in the world of nature and spirit, the criterion of what is worthwhile in the life of the individual, society and nations, so that the "will to power" is the content of the new ana better commandment which will dissolve Christian morality and achieve dominance in the 20th century. On the other side, Jacob Burckhardt said that power is intrinsically evil, its cult being the source of the great disaster which he expected in the same 20th century. Both men came to their conclusions from a study of the same historical phenomenon, namely, the ruthless princes and popes of the Italian Renaissance, in a common orientation on A. Schopenhauer (the one in aversion and the other in agreement with him), and in the same city of Basel. And the prophecies of both with regard to the 20th century have so far been fulfilled to the letter. There is no passage in the Bible in which power as such, whether physical, mental or political, is praised as good or even desirable, much less as the supreme good. On the contrary, "there is no king saved by the multitude of an host: a mighty man is not delivered by much strength. An horse is a vain thing for safety: neither shall he deliver any by his great strength" (Ps. 3316[.). "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts," is the Word of the Lord to Zerubbabel (Zech. 46). This "Spirit of the Lord" alone is said to be the free mystery of Samson's strength in such primitive passages as Judg. 13-16. And the Philistine Goliath in 1 Sam. 17 from the very outset is portrayed as a very problematical figure doomed to perish in his empty might. Hence we read: "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches" Uere923). And again: "God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are migh ty" (I Cor. I 27) . According to the Magnificat the Lord in the coming of His kingdom has "shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree" (Lk. I5lf.). According to the New Testament, "power in itself' is possessed only by those angelic caricatures, the powers of chaos, which are called EgovaLaL EN35 and are active in the impotent strength of falsehood, but which are already condemned to fall in Jesus Christ, and have indeed fallen, so that they are no longer worthy of respect or fear.

As opposed to the empty might of Goliath, the power which man is commanded to affirm, will and use can be recognised by the following criteria. 1. It is a power given to man, and indeed given by God with the loan of his life in general and as such. To live is to be able, to be able to do what is necessary for life. Life consists in the actualisation of this ability. To accomplish this actualisation is the task given to man. But the ability at stake is not his merit, work or possession. This ability has been entrusted to him. He has been given it as a loan. As God calls man to life, He makes this loan, and every divine address is always an explicit confirmation, a new elucidation and in this sense an extension of this loan. Thus the right affirmation of this ability, the correct use of this real power, is characterised as an act of gratitude. Seen from this standpoint, it is necessary. It cannot be arbitrarily omitted. On the other hand, EN34 EN35

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it cannot be an act of self-glorification. It can be accomplished only as a careful handling of the entrusted blessing. And it must be emphasised that the power which man may and should affirm, will and exercise must be given to him from God, and must be acknowledged by him as given by God. For he might have received and adopted other powers from a very different source and affirmed, willed and used them. In virtue of his sin, and fatal connexion with the world of nothingness, he might have taken over the powers of this realm of chaos. They might be great and splendid, or present themselves as such to him and others. He might think that he can do with them what he can never do with the power given him by God, i.e., possess them, and be himself possessed by them in this belief. He might think that he can be effective through them, and be driven and enslaved in this belief. He would be able to do many things. He would be able to lie with great adroitness and technical skill. He would be able to fashion his life, according to the manner of these powers, as one great triumphant lie. In their impotent strength he might achieve impressive successes and masteries over men and things. But in all of them he could really be only a disturber and destroyer, and first and supremely of his own life. And in their fulfilment he would inevitably fall a victim to eternal death. The power which is not received from God but from somewhere else has always and necessarily the character of this apparently elevating and liberating but in reality degrading and enslaving power of falsehood and death. When we will power, we must see to it that it is not this power. If we will the power by which in fact we can only be possessed and driven, then it is the power which we must not will at any price. The power given by God, which we cannot will arbitrarily or vaingloriously but can only handle as an entrusted blessing, is the power of truth and life. Precisely because it can be affirmed and used only in humility, it is a genuinely elevating and liberating power. We must be on guard, for wherever (even in the finest and smallest matter) it is a question of our human ability and capacity, this decision is also made either secretly or openly (and more often secretly than openly). We either have it from above or from below. There is no third possi bili ty. The New Testament often speaks of the power and force to which man may and should say Yes. But it leaves us in no doubt that it understands by it exclusively the strength that God has lent to man. The disciples of 1 In. 213 are "strong" because and as the Word of God remains in them and they have overcome the wicked one. Abraham "was strong (EvE8vvaf-tw8Tj) in faith giving glory to God" (Rom. 420). Hence the prayer that the Father "grant you (the Christians) to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man" (Eph. 316). Hence the admonitions: "Watch you, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong" 13 (av8pL~Ea8E, KpaTaLova8E, 1 Cor. 16 ); and Ev8vvaf-tova8E EV KVpLq> Kat EV T0 KpaTEL TTJS iaxvos aVTOV EN36 Eph. 610, cf. 2 Tim. 21). Hence the claim of Paul: 7TavTa iaxvw EV T0 Ev8vvaf-tOVVTL f-tEEN37 (Phil. 413, cf. 1 Tim. 112). Because these texts view human power only in its relation to its origin in God, in Christ and in the Spirit, they can speak of it quite freely

EN36 EN37

be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might I can do all things through the one who strengthens me.

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and raise the will for human power almost to a command. They obviously do not envisage the 8Vvaf.LEL~ and Egova{aL EN38 of which one would have to speak quite differently. 2. The power which man may and should will and use is always the power which God has given precisely to him as an individual. What we have said about the particularity of the life and character of each individual applies also to his capacity for life. It only exists as something unique, only as the sum of just his possibilities. His will for power can only move within the limit set for him. As he knows, other men have other possibilities which he may fancy and which he would like to control-their eyes and ears, their language, their freedom of movement, their way of grasping and releasing, their aptitude for handling men and things, their skill in gaining influence-but they are not his and never will be. If he reaches after them, he is a defrauder, and even though he may enjoy initial and apparent success, he can never as such master or control the advancements or impediments of life as they may confront him. Snatching at the possessions of others, he necessarily abandons that which has been entrusted to him and the only thing which can really help him. For in face of the advancements and impediments which confront him man cannot select at will what seem to be great and effectual capacities and skills. He can only dispose of his own: his own powers of sight and hearing; his own heart and mind; his own strength of decision and action; his own ability to perceive and perform. On the other hand, this does not mean that he must ever think that he knows definitively the limits of his own capabilities, and that he may therefore fix them for himself or allow them to be fixed for him by others.

There exists a terrible book by Aldous Huxley called Brave New World. It tells of a future epoch of humanity in which the artificial procreation and rearing of the human embryo will become a general law to be carried through mechanically, and this in such a waythat individuals will be produced in fixed numbers in each deliberately graded class, so that they are all either alpha, beta or gamma men with specially balanced physical and psychical characteristics and possibilities, and will finally have to live side by side according to the resultant equation. What a splendid new world! For in it everyone will be absolutely happy from the very outset, or rather from the test-tube in which he is prepared. All serious competition or social conflict is excluded from the beginning, or rather from the test-tube again. In fact, of course, this would be a dreadful, godless world, since it would be composed only of men without either orientation or future.

The capacity of each individual is in reality as incalculable and uncontrollable as he is himself. It can be known and decided only by God. If a man says: "I cannot," he must remember that he might well be able to do to-day what he quite honestly thought he could not do yesterday. But if he says: "I can," he must consider that he might not be able to do to-day or ever again what he was confident he could do yesterday. In neither case has he perhaps realised, what EN38

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is given to him. In both he must perhaps make new discoveries, whether positive or negative, in relation to his capacity. In both the decision must be made in relation to the God who has created, sustains, guides and knows him. The genuine art of living is learned along the way of such human decisions in relation to God, of such discovery of the limits within which a man may be powerful and beyond which he can only condemn himself to powerlessness, seeing that God has prescribed and set them for him. God knows the limitations of each individual. He has set them for him as He has lent and continually lends him this life and not another, and as He instructs him concerning himself. The man who is obedient to God must consider, therefore, that, while his capacities may be immeasurable to himself, they are certainly not without limitations. Hence he must allow himself to be shown his capacities step by step as he exercises them, and his incapacities as he comes across them. Finally, he must continually see in this twofold experience that the infinite wealth of God Himself is the sure and eternal inheritance of the one who without any glancing aside is content to administer the finite and limited and in this sense meagre riches allotted to him, and who is thus not" lacking in faithfulness in their administration. 3. A further element in the power which man should desire and exercise is that it possesses the character of something necessary to him. It is not given him as a luxury, but because he requires it. It is not, therefore, vanity for him to will and use it. Of course, what is a luxury to one, as, for example, the arts and sciences in the nar~ower sense of the term, may be vitally necessary to another, and vice versa. Thus there exists no universal concept of what is necessary. But the question is addressed to man in respect of every conceivable human possibility whether this or that is absolutely and vitally necessary. Is it necessary to see and hear and learn such and such? Does one have to master this or that theoretical or practical problem, or press one's opinion or intention in this or that matter? To be sure, one can; but strictly speaking one should will or desire only what one must. There exist tendencies which are false because they cannot be the subject of genuine volition, so that to follow them is not a necessity but a luxury, an accidental and arbitrary act, a waste of time and energy. It is no doubt true that we must all advance to the willing of what is necessary and the affirmation of essential capacities by the detour of numerous wasteful experiments and resultant disappointments in the willing of unnecessary power. But none of us can put too early, too often or too seriously the question what capacities are essential. For the desire for all sorts of unnecessary and inessential power is the vacuum which in different ways will usually be filled sooner or later by evil, chaotic and demonic power in itself. We can see this on a large scale-though it is equally valid on a small-if we consider the obvious problem of modern technology. Like a miracle, there began to dawn on western man, and is now beginning to do so on almost the whole of mankind, the human capacity or ability to harness and control the materials and forces of nature in all their variety. And like a

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storm, there has come in a corresponding and comprehensive will for this power, followed by achievement in every sphere and the opening up of the most fantastic prospects of further achievement in the future. But one thing has failed to keep pace with this whole development, namely, the conscientious answering of the simple question whether all this capacity and will are vitally necessary. Naturally, the abundance of technical possibilities which modern life enjoys as compared with that of our fathers and forefathers has brought with it a corresponding abundance of requirements which were likewise unknown to them. But how many of our modern requirements are really necessary, justified, sensible or even genuinely felt? To give only a single instance, are all the traffic accelerations offered us to-day really indispensable? They save time, it is argued. But surely sensible people in the past had sufficient time for genuinely necessary things with much less speedy traffic. And foolish people to-day, in spite of our speedy transport, still have too little time for what is genuinely necessary. Is it not obvious that between modern technical ability, will and achievement and their offer on the one side, and genuine human need in the sense of what is vitally necessary even to modern man on the other, there exists in extensive areas the strangest chasm? We can will and do in increasing measure, but to a large extent the wheels are secretly turning in vain because we desire and use a power which we do not basically need at all and which in some respects it would be better if we had never even known, far less wanted and unleashed. The technical mastery which goes beyond what is vitally necessary, which at bottom has its meaning and purpose in itself, and which, in order to exist and augment itself, must alwaysevoke new and doubtful needs, inevitably becomes the monster which in many wayswe now see it to be, so that finally and ridiculously it is little more than a technique of disorder and destruction, of war and annihilation. Nevertheless man should not accuse technical skill of being "soulless"; he should accuse himself and his irrational will for power. He himself is the problem of modern technical skill. What kind of ajoyous power is it in whose enjoyment, what kind of a power in whose possession and exercise, he now seems to stagger like a drunkard to some collective abyss?

We have said that there is no general concept of the power which is necessary to man. But in this question of what is necessary we do have a clear guiding principle, and this is the concept of service. For service means decisive liberation from all empty hunger for power and its empty and in the long run false satisfaction. Those who are engaged in service, who have and who live in a vocation in the wider sense, are basically preserved from the will for power. It is for them a luxury for which they can have no serious use. Engaged as they are, they know what they need and do not want what they do not. Our emphasis at the moment is on the first point that they know what they need, and that they therefore want it. They have a task in the discharge of which they must know, master and control, not all things, but certain things. It is because of their task that this knowledge is vitally necessary, being part of the daily bread for which they must ask but also work. There are several kinds of service, vocation and commission. Hence even from this standpoint we cannot say what is necessary to all. Each must choose and will resolutely the power which he needs to be faithful and obedient in his own place. He not only may but must choose and will it, even though it may seem odd and strange as compared with what others must choose and will. We should not forget, however, that the 69

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fact that he lives in this service, vocation and commission, that he has the wisdom to choose what is necessary to it, and finally the resolution to will it, derives no less than its fulfilment from God, so that here, too, his relation to God is the ultimate criterion of all criteria. 4. The kind of power which is necessary for each of us must be left in the hands of God. If we would be powerful in obedience, we cannot insist obstinately on what we understand by power, ability or capacity, nor on the fact that we can reach certain aims, accomplish certain achievements or initiate certain works. This is, of course, one kind of power which man requires. Nevertheless there is a form of human life and service in which he must be able to do something different. At a first glance, this does not look like ability at all, but its very opposite, since it has nothing whatever to do with the attainment of aims, or the accomplishment of works. For when man stands in the service of God, he must be able sometimes, and perhaps for long periods, to be still, to wait, to keep silence, to suffer and therefore to be without the other kind of capacity. For certain people in a certain service at a certain hour this may be the ability which they require and the power which they must choose. The choice and desire will not be immediately self-evident, nor will they be easy. But the true wisdom and resolution of a man in his other choices and desires are decided in the very moments and situations when his path brings him round a sharp corner into this modest sphere of silence and lack. It may well be that the real quality of the power given to a man can only emerge and be seriously attained in this realm where it seems to be impotence. At any rate, there can be no doubt that the power which we ought to will has also the form in which it emerges in this realm. For the power of God Himself, reflected in the power which He gives to man, is the power of jesus Christ, and therefore the power of the Lamb as well as the Lion, of the cross as well as the resurrection, of humiliation as well as exaltation, of death as well as life. To this there corresponds the way in which God gives power, ability and capacity to man. The power which comes from Him is the capacity to be high or low, rich or poor, wise or foolish. It is the capacity for success or failure, for moving with the current or against it, for standing in the ranks or for solitariness. For some it will almost alwaysbe only the one, for others only the other, but usually it will be both for all of us in rapid alternation. In each case, however, it will be true capacity, the good gift of God, ascribed to each as needed in His service. God demands one service to be rendered in the light, another which can be performed only in shadow. That is why He distributes this varied ability according to His good-pleasure. Either way, it is grace, being for each of us exactly that which God causes to be allotted to us. Hence the commanded will for power can always be the confident will for the kind of power which is now assigned to us. It will not be a rigid but a fluid or flexible will, not merely in the direction in which we normally look when we speak of will for power, but also in the other direction in which strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 129).

2.

2.

The Protection of Life

THE PROTECTION OF LIFE

We shall now try to elucidate the literal wording and meaning of the biblical commandment: "Thou shalt not kill." It maintains that man is not to become the murderer of man. It offers protection to human life against wilful and wanton extinction. Thus far we have considered the positive element implied in this commandment as a prohibition. We have explained the concept of the affirmation of life required of man according to the positive content. Human life-one's own and that of others-belongs to God. It is His loan and blessing. For God has unequivocally and fully accepted it in Jesus Christ, in the incarnation of His Word. Therefore respect is due to it, and, with respect, protection against each and every callous negation and destruction. Obedient abstention from such destruction, and therefore the obedient protection of life, will naturally include knowledge of its limitation. It is not divine life, but creaturely. It is not the eternal life promised to man, but temporal. If the command of this protection is unconditional, the protection still has its inner norm in the will of God the Creator who enjoins it on man, in the horizon which is set for man by the same God with ordination to eternal life. Thus the protection of life required of us is not unlimited nor absolute. It is simply the protection which God wills to demand of man as the Creator of this life and the Giver of the future eternal life. With this self-evident modification it is commanded absolutely. We have already tried to give an account of this modification in our positive discussion of respect for life, and we must now do so in all seriousness. It is to be noted that it does not mean that there exists a standpoint from which a callous negation and destruction of human life may still be regarded as legitimate or even imperative. In no sense, then, does it imply a limitation of the commandment. It simply refers to the fact that human life has no absolute greatness or supreme value, that it is not a kind of second god, but that its proper protection must also be guided, limited and defined by the One who commands it, i.e., by the One who is a real God, the supreme good, the Lord of life. It simply means that the required protection of life must take into account its limitation in relation to that which is to be protected. It cannot try to have only one mode, or to express itself only in the assertion, preservation and defence of life. These are naturally the forms of achievement which are most obvious and which call for primary treatment. And so far as possible they will continue to be the only forms in which it presents itself. But since human life is of relative greatness and limited value, its protection may also consist ultima rationeEN39 in its surrender and sacrifice. In certain circumstances, should the commanding God so will it, it may have to break and discontinue the defence of life in which it should present itself until this boundary is reached. This will be the case only, but then in all seriousness, when God as the Lord of life so wills it. EN39

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Life

The difficult problem of this exceptional case is the main theme of the present sub-section. Its difficulty lies in the fact that it cannot be completely excluded, since we cannot deny the possibility that God as the Lord of life may further its protection even in the strange form of its conclusion and termination rather than its preservation and advancement. Yet this exceptional case can and should be envisaged and accepted only as such, only as ultima ratioEN40, only as highly exceptional, and therefore only with the greatest reserve on the exhaustion of all other possibilities. For we cannot deny that the command to protect life in its simple and obvious sense undoubtedly implies its preservation and defence, i.e., the affirmation and not the denial of its temporal continuation. Indifference, wilfulness and wantonness in relation to human life can never in any circumstances be allowed to replace the obligatory will to protect it. This is forbidden by the literal wording and sense of the biblical commandment: "Thou shalt not kill."

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This means: "Thou shalt not murder." Hence it is not a plain and simple prohibition of every kind of extinction of human life by human decision and action. Such an understanding of Ex. 2013f.and par. is excluded by the fact that the killing of men by men is not only reported in Old Testament stories, and often without any objection to such action, but in many passages it is even directly enjoined on certain presuppositions that particular individuals are to be put to death. Again, the New Testament interpretation of this commandment in Mt. 52lf. does not attack killing as such but radicalises the concept of murder (cf. I jn. 315). He who is angry with his brother and calls him Raca or fool incurs the judgment of the commandment in the same way as he who in the simple sense of the term wilfully takes the life of another. It is tacitly assumed that there is a form of killing which as such is not murder. To be sure, when the disciples james and john desired fire to fall from heaven upon the Samaritans who would not receive jesus, that they should be consumed (Lk. g5lf.),jesus rebuked them, saying, according to some readings: ''Yeknow not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." But this obviously refers on the one hand to the root of the request in a wicked and murderous spirit in the sense ofMt. 52lf., and on the other to an understanding of their mission which according to Luke glf. was unequivocally false, their task being to exercise power over demons, to cure illnesses and to preach the kingdom of God, but at no point to extinguish human life. Yet the fact that even for New Testament Christianity this was not ruled out a limineEN41 is shown by the strange story recorded by the same Luke in Ac. 51-11,which almost compels us to infer that Peter physically killed Ananias and his wife Sapphira by his word. And may it not be that we have something of the same in I Cor. 54f.,when Paul orders that the fornicator shall be delivered up to Satan for the destruction of the flesh? Similarly,we do not have a demand for absolute defencelessness in the saying addressed to Peter in Mt. 2652:"Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword" (cf. Rev. 1310).To take the sword is wickedly, high-handedly, wantonly and rebelliously to arrogate to oneself the sword and its death-dealing power. This is what Peter intended to do or had already done on this occasion. And he is told that those who do this are condemned to the sphere where what they do to others must happen to them, either at the hands of other sword-bearing rebels or EN40 a limit case EN41 from the outset

2.

The Protection of Life

even of those who are legitimate bearers of the sword for the keeping of public order. Peter's task cannot lead him into this sphere, and therefore he must put up his sword into its place. Yet Paul tells us that there are legitimate bearers of the power of the sword as avengers to "execute wrath upon him that doeth evil" and therefore to this extent as ministers of God (Rom. 134). In addition, we are explicitly told byJesus Himself that power of life and death has been given from above to the unjust judge Pilate Un. 1910f.). We must obviously move with circumspection, therefore, in this matter. On the other hand, it is clear that the case of just killing which is not excluded by the commandment either on its Old Testament or New Testament interpretation constitutes an exception in both Testaments. It is the judgment of God penetrating into human history and society. We cannot take it as self-evident that men should have to act as its executioners. It is a highly dangerous moment when they think that they are called to do so. For what they do might equally well be the misdeed which, among many things that can take place between men, even the Old Testament seems to regard as the worst, namely, murder, the thoughtless or malicious shedding of the blood of man created in the image of God (Gen. 96), by which the land is defiled and desecrated until the murderer has met with the same fate (Num. 3533f.). According to the definition of Deuteronomy 1910f. a murderer is someone who sheds innocent blood, "hating his neighbour, and lying in wait for him, and rising up against him, and smiting him mortally." This constitutes the transgression or breaking of the commandment, and there is neither ransom (Num. 3531) nor acquittal (Deut. 1912f.) for the one who does this. He has fallen victim to the avenger of blood (Num. 3512; Deut. 196) and finally to the congregation, which, if it finds him guilty, must condemn him to death. For the blood of the brother "crieth unto God from the ground," as we are told in the story of Cain (Gen. 410), which as the first consequence of the fall of our first parents is not placed for nothing at the head of the history of humanity in need of reconciliation with God. And it is significant that the acquittal of a murderer like this in place of Jesus is demanded by the people and actually decreed by the unjust judge Pilate (Mk. 156f. and par.). Again, it is not for nothing that inJn 844 it is said of the devil that "he was a murderer from the beginning," nor that in 1 In. 315 it is most categorically said of the human dV{}pW1TOKT6vo~ EN42 that such a person does not have eternal life. Murder heads the list of all possible wrongs between man and man, and is brought under a glaring spotlight throughout the Bible. Such is the high value set on human life. The consequence is that the whole witness of the Bible, although it recognises and does not exclude homicide which is not murder, is in fact a supreme summons to vigilance at this point. If the sayings of Jesus to His disciples regarding the fire from heaven, and to Peter regarding the sword, are not exclusive, nevertheless they have a strong retarding meaning which is quite unmistakeable, an apparently justifiable wish to kill being unmasked and rejected in both cases as a will to murder. A new light is shed even on the many exceptional cases of justifiable homicide recounted or envisaged in the Old Testament by the saying in Ezekiel: "Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? said the Lord God: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?" (1823 32; 3311). It is worth noting that.this is the same prophet who in another passage (21 6f 13f.) gives us a terrible description of the Lord's sword drawn from its scabbard and gleamingly poised to strike a mortal blow. How far-reaching, too, is the kerygma of the New Testament, which at its heart declares that God Himself has lived a human life in Jesus Christ, and that this one man was killed for all men and their sins! From this standpoint, can we still speak of the justifiable killing of one man by another? Can there be any necessary or commanded extinction of human life? What would be its purpose now that by the extinction of this one human life that which is necessary and EN42

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~ 55. Freedom for Life right for all has already taken place? It is indeed a matter for surprise that in the New Testament, as we have seen, not all cases of homicide are simply and absolutely prohibited as murder. But there can be no doubt that the protection of human life against wilful extinction has acquired in the New Testament, on the one hand through the incarnation, through the identity of the actualised kingdom of God. with the Son of Man, and on the other through His crucifixion for the sins of the world, a severity and emphasis which compel us, when we ask concerning our own conduct, to push back the frontier between the ultima rationeEN43 and forbidden murder. The difference between the frequency with which the Old Testament counts on the exceptional case and the rarity with which it occurs in the New is quite striking even within or in spite of the basic perception common to both. This must not be overlooked when we ask concerning the meaning and scope of the divine commandment. In the final New Testament form in which we have to hear and understand it, the commandment: "Thou shalt not kill," reaches us in such a way that in all the detailed problems which may arise we cannot exclude the exceptional case and yet we cannot assert too sharply that it is genuinely exceptional. In other words, we cannot overemphasise the arguments against it, nor raise too strongly the question whether even what seems to be justifiable homicide might not really be murder.

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Many questions call for consideration in relation to the concrete meaning of the commandment. We begin with the most obvious: What is the implication of the protection of life, and therefore of the 'command: "Thou shalt not kill," in relation to the possibility given to man of putting an end to his own life? Does the divinely commanded freedom to be also include the freedom to choose this possibility ? What is the meaning of murder or suicide in this respect, and is there any occasion when it might be regarded asjustifiable and necessary? The problem of suicide or self-destruction in the narrow and direct sense of the concept is a specific one, and before tackling it we must advance a general reflection. Man can knowingly and deliberately expose his life to possible, probable or even certain danger. He can bring its continued existence under a threat which he may not himself will or execute, which comes from without, but for which he is responsible because he fails to avoid and has perhaps even sought the danger. He can knowingly and intentionally cause himself to die, not only in a blatant, but sometimes in a very unobtrusive way.The problem of murder or homicide presents itself already in cases of this kind. The life of man does not belong to himself but to God. God has lent it to him, not by a decree of fate but in proof of His favour, not for wanton disposal but for a definite service. What does he do, therefore, when he exposes it to danger, when he thus compromises or even suspends the required affirmation of life and the will to live, by perhaps making the threat almost unavoidable instead of avoiding it? The command that man should protect human life surely includes that he should take care of it. As we have seen already with reference to the question of health and sickness, it surely embraces defence against death. EN43

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The Protection of Life

We may confidently maintain that fear of death is part of the obedience to this command. Indeed, we are forced to say this in view of the story of Gethsemane (Mk. 1432f. and par.). It is worth mentioning that when we are told of jesus that He began to be "troubled and fainthearted" (cf. Lk. 1250), the request for the passing of the cup, and the whole aywvta EN44 (Lk. 2244) to which the passages refer, is not to be understood as an inclination to disobedience but as an element in the obedience ofjesus. He did not throwaway His life as ifit were worthless. He sacrificed it as something precious from which it was not easy for Him to part. He would not otherwise have offered it to God and therefore for the salvation of the world.

Temporal life is certainly not the highest of all goods.Just because it belongs to God, man may be forbidden to will its continuation at all costs. He may be ordered to risk and expose it to varying degrees of danger. It may happen that God demands this exposure, so that acceptance and obedient affirmation are possible only in the form of readiness and even the desire to die. Wanting to live on at all costs can then be only an elemental, sinful and rebellious desire. It may be that with more or less certainty man must not only face gallantly the expected termination of his temporal existence but earnestly will it, though not actually encompassing or effecting it. It may be that he must offer himself. His very will to live may have to take on this form, i.e., when it becomes clear to him that in obedience to the Lord of life he must now accept this form. When jesus went up to jerusalem, He did this not only in full consciousness of the danger to which He thereby exposed Himself, not only with the certainty that He would have to die there, but in affirmation of the necessity of this event. "The Son of man must ... "Hence we read in jn. 1017f.: "No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself (a7T' Ej.LavTov). I have power to lay it down ... " And "therefore doth my Father love me." When Peter tries to resist the sacrifice ofjesus: "Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee" (Mt. 1622f.), he is called Satan, and told that he thinks in terms of man and not of God.

It is by this supreme standard that everything which man thinks he should will along these lines must be measured. It cannot, then, be a question of negligence or arrogance, of imprudent or unnecessary readiness for risk, when a man rightly believes that he is in exceptional circumstances in which he must expose his life to danger. If life is not the highest possession, then it is at least the highest and allinclusive price which he can pay. The question is thus urgently posed for what it should be hazarded. The question is the more insistent because life is a loan from God entrusted to man for His service. There can thus be no question of paying this price except when a corresponding decree of the Owner and requirement of His service make it unambiguously necessary. In this case, however, man may and even must cause that he should possibly or even certainly die or be put to death. In so doing he does not leave the sphere of the protection of life required of him. On the contrary, he gives supreme evidence of this protection by the sacrifice of life. In this case, but only in this case, its sacrifice is commanded and therefore legitimate. EN44

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It goes without saying that in this case the fear of death does not simply disappear but is certainly outshone by the joy of obedience, and of the love for God and the brethren, with which a man may, if need be, defy death and give himself up to it. Proof of the reality of this case is perhaps given in the fact that the fear of death does not disappear, but is simply transcended by the more urgent fear of God, i.e., by the supreme love in which a man may give his life for his friends Un. 1513). How could there be any talk of a sacrifice made by God as the Lord of life if man could hazard and throwaway his life without pain or terror? When risks are taken in sport or mountaineering, e.g., by novices without guides or in the pioneering of new routes, or when they are taken in scientific or technical experiments, not to speak of the old-fashioned duel, is this really a sacrifice and therefore a self-exposure which is not merely legitimate but seriously responsible? Even daring in time of war cannot be selfevidently or generally classified as such. To be sure, in this case we can only ask and not finally decide for and concerning others. Would anyone have condemned the last Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia ifin November 1918, instead of fleeing to Holland, he had exposed his life to acute danger in the trenches alongside his soldiers? Would not this have been a proof of the frequently and loudly extolled ethos of his dynasty and of old Prussia? Might he not thereby have given a different turn to all subsequent German history? Chancellor Michaelis, a convinced Protestant Christian, did actually propose this step to him at the time. William II for his part felt unable to accept responsibility for it because of his Christian conscience. Who was right? It is as well that we need not judge either wayconcerning others. We can only observe that there is obviously a frontier in this matter, on one side of which is the right and necessary readiness for death and on the other the wholly wrong and wicked readiness which is murder, i.e., the act of suicide. And in none of the relevant situations can any of us avoid asking at least if this or that risk is necessary because demanded by God and therefore righ t.

The same question is given a final acuteness when related to the possibility of self-destruction in the narrower and true sense. Beyond bringing himself into possible and perhaps certain danger of his life, a man may perhaps take the ultimate course of deliberately taking his life, or committing suicide, or "making an end of things." In this respect he can do what no animal seems able to do, so that there have not been lacking some to praise the possibility of this specific human act as a form of human glorification. For it means that man can freely dispose of his life. He is so strictly the subject of his life that he is under no compulsion to continue to live. Even if he lacks the power to continue it in all circumstances; even if the hour comes when he may wish to continue it but cannot do so, he has still the power to renounce his life at the moment of his own choosing. The expression "to take one's life" is particularly illuminating in this connexion. Life is man himself in the duration of his temporal existence. Hence man can "take himself." He can will and achieve his own non-being. If he regards his being as an obvious failure, or an intolerable burden, or perhaps for no particular reason as valueless; if he no longer finds any pleasure in himself at all, he can draw the practical conclusion and snuff himself out. If he believes that in his human environment he has no scope nor influence nor honour, he can turn his back on it once and for all in suicide. Suicide is a last and most radical means of procuring for oneself justice and freedom.

2.

The Protection of Life

Obviously we have only to consider its positive meaning to perceive at once its very dubious nature. The suicide seems to act with final sovereignty and with a view to asserting it. But he does so paradoxically by throwing it away,by refusing to go on living, by effectively securing that he need exist no longer. It is evident that a man like A. Schlatter had only this possibility in view when under the title "The Rejection of Suicide" (Christl. Ethik, 1914,338 f.) he said: "The annihilation of one's own life is alwaysin conflict with the faith that apprehends God. For it is a refusal of God's help, a grasping at the unrestricted power to dispose of oneself, a rebellion against one's allotted destiny." We can also understand the unqualified No of the Roman Catholic Church and its ethics since St. Augustine's decision on the matter, after a certain hesitation on the part of some of the earlier fathers. From this unqualified No, of course, there ought not to follow, as there has, an absolute condemnation, with subsequent ecclesiastical and civil discrimination against the suicide. Schlatter not only avoids this, but does so deliberately and with great resolution. To be sure, it is a terrible thought that rebellion against God should have the content of an irrevocably final act. But what right have we to isolate the last moment of human existence from that which precedes, and to judge a man by this moment alone? Indeed, we have even to ask Schlatter whether we are absolutely summoned and authorised to adjudge a last act which has this content to be rebellion against God; whether we can clearly know or even assume as probable that it has taken place in rebellion against God; and therefore whether every case of selfdestruction is really suicide in the sense of self-murder. In short, the exceptional case must be considered here, too, in our exposition of the commandment. To the best of my knowledge, the Ethik of D. Bonhoeffer (1949, 111-116) gives us the most cautious statement so far written on this matter. We cannot expect every man at every moment to know from his own experience the meaning of real affliction and assault, "when we are in the greatest distress and do not know which way to turn." A man assailed and afflicted is hid from all others and sometimes even from himself.. He is alone with God, and tortured by the terrible question whether God is really with him and for him, or whether he must regard himself as an atheist, i.e., a man whom God has rejected and abandoned. Many theologians and theological moralists do not in practice know properly what affliction is because exegetically, dogmatically and even pastorally they know only too well in theory. In all cases, however, suicide is consciously or unconsciously this final assault and affliction. Even the most confirmed theological moralist ought to see this, and therefore to remember that perhaps he does not finally know what takes place between God and the suicide, nor therefore what is the decision which drives him to this dubious act. Is he really a selfmurderer ? A readiness to recognise that he may not have been a self-murderer at all is required of all who know what it is to be assailed and afflicted, even if only in theory.

We must start with the unequivocal fact that when self-destruction is the exercise of a supposed and usurped sovereignty of man over himself it is a frivolous, arbitrary and criminal violation of the commandment, and therefore self-murder. To deprive a man of his life is a matter for the One who gave it and not for the man himself. He who takes what does not belong to him, in this case only to throw it away, does not merely kill; he murders. There is no ground on which to justify or authorise this. For it is not even for man himself to decide whether his existence is a success or a failure, whether it is tolerable or intolerable, whether its continuation is possible or impossible, far less whether it is worth while or mean and worthless. The Creator, Giver and Lord of life decides all these things, and no one else. Man may certainly have his own opinion on them., and perhaps a negative opinion. He may even have a

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kind of desire or wish to die in consequence, like the well-known "desire to depart" in Phil. 123• But this opinion and desire can be right only if they occur in obedience and are defined and limited by it. Man undoubtedly puts himself in the wrong ifhe takes it upon himself to make this opinion a sentence which he tries to execute it upon himself. He is not authorised to be his own judge. He is not free to act as such. He is not free, therefore, to "take his own life." God can take it back. But so long as He does not do this, so long as man has it, it is given him only as an inalienable loan. It is given by God. It is thus a benefit conferred by Him. Man may not recognise it as such. This does not mean, however, that he can deny it this character. It is given by God, and therefore for use in His service. It may seem hard or even impossible for man to live it in His service. But this does not mean that he can quit or evade this service. It is given him by God, and therefore with the freedom to affirm it. This freedom may for the most part be a burden to man. But this does not mean that he can understand it as autonomy, i.e., as the freedom to deny life, to resolve in pretended freedom upon its destruction, and to act accordingly. Selfjustification, selfsanctification and self-glorification are quite impossible for man in any form, and therefore in this form too. Nostri non sumus sed DominiEN45 (Calvin). Selfdestruction as the taking of one's own life in this way is clearly self-murder. We must go on at once to say, however, that even suicide in this sense is not as such unforgivable sin. For there are many other ways of "taking" one's own life which may be more foolish and wicked than suicide. We have also to remember the parallel case of criminal murder in relation to others. If there is forgiveness of sins at all, even for the latter sin, there is surely forgiveness for suicide. The opinion that it alone is unforgivable rests on the false view that the last will and act of man in time, because they are the last and take place as it were on the very threshold of eternity, are authoritatively and conclusively decisive for his eternal destiny and God's verdict on him. But this cannot be said of any isolated will or act of man, and therefore not even of the last. God sees and weighs the whole of human life. Hejudges the heart. And Hejudges it according to His own righteousness which is that of mercy. He thus judges the content of the last hour in the context of the whole. Even a righteous man may be in the wrong at the last. Even the most sincere believer may be hurled on his death-bed into the most profound confusion and uncertainty, even though there be no suggestion of suicide. What would become of him if there were no forgiveness at this point? Yet if there is forgiveness for him, why not for the suicide? Here as elsewhere, however, God's forgiveness is no excuse, much lessjustification, for sin. The man who kills himself in the sense of taking the life which does not belong to him violates the commandment and murders as well as kills. He thus sins. Nor can there be any question of divine forgiveness making this legitimate. On the contrary, we must move on immediately to the even EN45

We a.re not our own but the Lord's.

2.

The Protection of Life

sharper affirmation that suicide in the sense described is actually rebellion against the God who forgives sins, who can forgive every sin even including this, who is gracious to man in Jesus Christ. Suicide cannot be extenuated, excused or justified. Freedom before this God, the only true God, cannot be freedom for suicide. It is to be noted that the reprehensible nature of suicide can be solidly and unequivocally shown only as we recognise that the Creator, Giver and Lord of life is the gracious God, and therefore only on the basis of the Gospel and faith, and not of any law. No lesser and abstractly moral objections can ever impose an authoritative and all-powerful embargo. We must remember that the man who toys with the thought of self-destruction is always in some way in the darkness of affliction. This consists, however, in the fact that God is hidden from him as his God, that he stands in danger and on the verge of sinking into the abyss of divine rejection or-what amounts to the same thing-the bottomless gulf of atheism, of seeing himself alone and sovereign, of perceiving above him, and now for some specific reason around, behind and before him, a dreadful void. There he stands as a sovereign not knowing what to do with his sovereignty, and in spite of it seeing no future before him. There thus beckons a last remaining possibility of using it, namely, that of making an end of his existence. He plays with this possibility. Who or what can prevent him fulfilling it? Certainly not an ideal, nor a mere imperative however serious, nor an empty prohibition even though it be taken from the Bible, where incidentally we look in vain for any express prohibition of suicide, nor a moral argument, however conclusive. The point is that when a man is mortally assailed, when he is in the void above, behind and before him, none of these things rings true; none carries any weight; none can really compete with the allurement of that possibility. He may be able to reject it to-day, but to-morrow or at any time it can present itself anew and with reinforced strength. No law in any form can make it an impossibility for him, nor rid him of it. In this situation, for example, a man will certainly not be restrained from suicide by the consideration that it is an escape and therefore cowardice. For who can decide whether the step into death does not really demand greater courage than the continuation of life? What if the action of the self-murderer presents itself to him as a heroic action in defiant or perhaps even fanatic conquest of death? Again, the doctrine of Aristotle that human society has a prior claim to the life of the individual has never been a hindrance to the man who has found himself on this path. He might see good reason to contest this claim, or to take the step of self-destruction in assertion of his undeniable relative right as an individual. And what if by this action he thinks he can serve the obvious good of society? Even the consideration of what he is doing to his neighbour, i.e., to his relatives and friends, will have no effect on the one who in that terrible isolation conceives the thought of self-destruction. He might even persuade himself that in this act he is rendering them a service. And even the Christian argument that suicide is an act which does not permit any future repentance is vulnerable to the reply that there are others who die in unrepented sin. Indeed, the suicide might sincerely believe that he is achieving the supreme and most costly and effective act of repentance by his self-extinction. D. Bonhoeffer (p. 113) is right: "It is not the baseness of motive

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that makes suicide objectionable. One can remain alive out of base motives and end life out of noble."

[407J

Into this darkness there shines only one light. This light, however, is penetrating and victorious. It is not a "Thou shalt live" but the "Thou mayest live," which none can say to another nor to himself, but which God Himself has spoken and continues to speak. The basis of the final assault is that man no longer hears God speak and say this to him. Hence the way which leads a man into it will always be the way of law, i.e., the vain and godless notion that he must live. From this he derives his will to live. He sees himself-and wittingly or unwittingly he is already afflicted and assailed-as that isolated and sovereign individual. He has no one and nothing above him. He is driven by the supposed necessity of living. He is abandoned in the Arctic wastes of his own sovereign will to live. If, then, for any reason or in any way he discovers that fundamentally he has nothing around, behind or before him, that it is thus a terrible thing to have to live and hopeless to will to do so, and that there is the possibility of a last and supreme act of sovereignty, i.e., the supposedly glorious freedom to liberate himself from the necessity of living by willing and encompassing his own death so that he need will nothing more, then he is confronted by suicide as an ostensible escape from this ultimate affliction. What is the mistake? According to the Gospel, it is to be found in the underlying presupposition. The real truth is not that we must live. It is that we may live. Life is the freedom which is bestowed by God. To will it is to will what we are permitted. It is to will in the freedom in which man is not sovereign or solitary, but always has God above him as the Creator, Giver and Lord of his life. Why do we want to be sovereign and solitary, so that in some way we come to see nothing but emptiness around us, and become desperate, and finally have to contemplate suicide? These things, i.e., sovereignty, solitariness, emptiness and despair, are necessary only if we must live, if life is not the freedom bestowed by God. They are necessary only if we are charged to help ourselves, if pressure is exerted from some quarter to take life into our own hands, to be our own masters, to make something significant of ourselves, to justify, sanctify, save and glorify ourselves, and therefore to have to recognise at some point and in some way that we cannot really succeed in doing this. But this supposition is false. For God is gracious to us. It thus follows that we may live, and that, since He is God, we are able to live by the fact that He is gracious. We can simply accept the fact that He is sovereign and not we. He has and bears the responsibility for our lives and not we. He does with them as He wills, and not as we think we must will. He conducts them to their goal irrespective of our success or failure. He justifies, sanctifies, saves and glorifies us. This is not required of us. All that is required of us is to accept the fact, receiving and acknowledging His free grace. And in no circumstances are we ever alone. We find ourselves surrounded by Him on every side. We cannot, then, despair, least of all of ourselves and our lives, however much they may seem to us to be 80

2.

The Protection of Life

unsuccessful, unhappy, useless or superfluous. The fact is that we belong to God, and therefore all the angels of God are on our side, and there is for us inexhaustible, illimitable and unfailing forgiveness, help and hope. That is why we cannot will to throwaway our lives whatever happens. Only as those who must live could we conceive such an idea in impatient revolt against the supposed necessity. But the point is that we are free to live. Hence there can be no question of such revolt. If God speaks thus to a man, this is the light in the darkness of his affliction and the right way out of it. It is God Himself, the true God, the God who is gracious to man in Jesus Christ, who always speaks thus to him. The fact that He addresses him thus, that His Word is the Gospel and the message of freedom andjoy, is what distinguishes this Word from all human words and all the sayings of other and false gods. When it is audible and heard, there is no suicide. For suicide is not only seen to be reprehensible; it is already rejected. We have alluded to the remarkable fact that in the Bible suicide is nowhere explicitly forbidden. This is a painful fact to all who have tried to understand and apply the Bible moralistically. It offers us something far better, however, by presenting us with three great cases of suicide in Saul, the first king of Israel (1 Sam. 314f.; cf. C.D., II, 2, pp. 336-393), Ahithophel, who as David's adviser went over to Absalom (2 Sam. 1723), and Judas, who betrayedJesus (Mt. 275, Ac. 116f 25; cf. C.D., II, 2, pp. 458-506). The figure of Zimri, who reigned for seven days and who according to 1 K. 1618 set the royal palace at Tirzah ablaze above his own head and perished in it, calls only for brief mention. It is to be noted that in the three stories of the three main suicides there is no condemnation of the suicide as such. It is simply reported that they finally made an end of themselves. All three stand deeply in the shadow of the biblical narrative. But apart from the nature of their end, it is not the shadow of any particular wickedness. The description of Saul in the First Book of Samuel tells of many an eminent trait in the life of this man, and only of what we might be inclined to dismiss as relatively trivial offences. His opponent David was undoubtedly a more flagrant sinner according to the text. Ahithopel, too, is in no sense denigrated, for he is depicted as a reputedly clever statesman: "And the counsel of Ahithophel, which he counselled in those days, was as if a man had inquired at the oracle of God: so was all the counsel of Ahithophel both with David and with Absalom" (2 Sam. 1623). EvenJudas as described in the text is in no sense the personification of wickedness that some have tried to make him. Did notJesus also choose and call him as an apostle? Is the act of his betrayal really more serious than the threefold denial of Peter? To translate 1TapaoovvaL as "betray" is to evoke, both technically and in particular morally, ideas which do not correspond to what he really did. Nor do we fail tq find in Judas sincere repentance, an open confession of sin and an attempt to make amends. The shadow which lies over these three figures is that of the divine and not a human judgment. Properly speaking, they are all sinners only against God's free grace. But this is no light matter. Saul in the Old Testament and Judas in the New, in strange kinship with Ahithophel, play so prominent a part just because they are sinners against the covenant and the free grace of God, and are therefore rejected in the divine judgment. In inconspicuous actions which are mostly quite respectable from a human standpoint, and which he at once regrets and confesses, Saul reveals that his desire is to be a king in Gentile fashion, i.e., as his own sovereign instead of in acknowledgment of the sovereignty of God. In so doing, he makes himself quite impossible as the king of Israel and as the man entrusted with this

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office. Ahithophel stands before us as the man whose whole cleverness is not wisdom, since he fails to recognise the elect of God and sets his talent in the service of a rebel whose cause is lost from the very outset. Finally, there isJudas, who in relation to Jesus commits the single but decisive error of being ready to follow Jesus but of still holding back, of wanting to be fundamentally sovereign himself as well. Hence it is possible and even necessary thatJesus should be sold by him for thirty pieces of silver. Hence it is possible and necessary that he should be the first to set the stone rolling, i.e., the whole train of events which leads Jesus first to the Sanhedrin, then to Pilate, and finally to Golgotha. In the act of self-glorification in face of God's free grace as shown in Jesus, Judas becomes the great sinner of the New Testament. In this self-glorification he can bring himself to perdition. His suicide is the logical end of his way. All three men are representatives of the sin of the elect people of Israel and even of the twelve apostles, namely, the flouting of the faithfulness and mercy of God. This is the sin in expiation of which Jesus died on the cross and which He showed to be done away in His resurrection. It is characterised, confirmed and therefore revealed by the end of these men in suicide. Those who refuse God's grace and try to exist as their own lords and masters are on the way at the end of which they can only fall on their own swords like Saul or hang themselves like Ahithophel and Judas. So great, incisive and fateful is man's guilt before God I-the guilt which Jesus did not ignore but which He took on Himself, paid for with His own life, and thus removed. In this sin whose nature is finally disclosed in suicide, man resists the mercy of God. But the mercy of God for its part, as it has appeared in Jesus, has resisted and victoriously defeated this sin. This is the biblical contribution to the problem of suicide. It states indirectly but so much the more clearly where and on what assumption suicide is impossible and excluded. It is excluded by the grace of God, by the cross and resurrection of Jesus, in which the sin of rebellion against the grace of God is expiated and abolished once and for all, and God as Creator, Giver and Lord of life has fundamentally and conclusively said Yes to man. It is impossible and excluded in virtue of the Gospel in which this divine Yes offers superior opposition to every human No. Nothing else can make suicide impossible. But the Gospel as it comes from the lips of God does so irresistibly. We can see from the detailed problem of suicide how necessary it is that the Church should dare constantly to appropriate to itself the Gospel of the free grace of God and to proclaim it with a fresh voice, not least in our own time and situation, in which it is often said that what is lacking and needed is not the Reformation faith in the grace of God but general belief in the existence of God. Now it is true that there are on the whole more suicides among Protestants than Roman Catholics. Yet this may be explained partly by the external deterrent of the rigorous attitude of the Roman Church and partly by the sociological structure of predominantly Roman Catholic countries, among which France is naturally an exception. Statistics, however, pose further problems. How is it, for instance, that between 1820 and 1878 the population of Germany hardly doubled, but in the same period the suicide rate became twice as high? How is it that suicide is disproportionately more frequent among the Germanic than the Romance and Slavonic peoples, and among the North Germans than those of the South and the Rhineland? Why is it three to four times more common among men than women? Why does it occur more often in large cities than rural areas, among the educated than the uneducated, and in summer rather than winter (a biological factor being obviously at work in this case)? What seems to emerge from the records is that the outward and inward activation, intensification, specialisation and complication, yet also idealisation and mystification of human life which we call modern civilisation, although plainly not the cause of the increase in suicides, has certainly created the social climate in which suicide

2.

The Protection of Life

thrives. If German National Socialism is not to be understood as a degenerate form, but as the climax and blossoming of specifically modern and autonomous humanity, it is no accident that its most prominent leaders departed this life in the way they did. Nevertheless, the smarting fact remains that, when we compare confessions, the Protestant Church and its proclamation, instruction and pastoral work have obviously failed to keep step with modern developments and with the resultant claims, self-assertion and deep disillusionment which are so dangerous to modern man. That is why it has been so impotent in face of the two collective attempts at suicide undertaken by sovereign man in the second and fifth decades of our century. It has the word which can put a halt to suicide. It must learn to speak it afresh, however, if it is to be effective. Whether in face of the Stoic casuistry: exitus non patetEN46, or in face of modern sentimentality, the Gospel makes it quite plain that there is no such thing as a free choice of death. Suicide in the sense of self-murder can only be condemned. It may well be that we lack the power to say this with true Christian depth and therefore with full urgency and effectiveness. Nevertheless, we must realise that in strength or weakness we have nothing else to say in the matter.

While there can be no doubt about this, we must not forget the exceptional case. Not every act of self-destruction is as such suicide in this sense. Selfdestruction does not have to be the taking of one's own life. Its meaning and intention might well be a definite if extreme form of the self-offering required of man. In Romans 121 we have the exhortation to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God. Is it impossible that in face of a specific demand this may have to mean for a specific man in a specific situation the giving up of his own life? We read in Col. 35: "Mortify therefore (vEKpwaaTE) your members which are upon the earth." Is it impossible that this might sometimes have to be taken literally by certain individuals engaged in a particular task?

Who can say that it is absolutely impossible for the gracious God Himself to help a man in affliction by telling him to take this way out? In some cases perhaps a man can and must choose and do this in the freedom given him by God and not therefore in false sovereignty, in despair at the futility of his existence, or in final, supreme and masterful self-assertion, but in obedience. Who can really know whether God might not occasionally ask back from man in this form the life which belongs to Him? Who can deny that, if such should be the case, man must surrender it with his own hands no less gratefully and joyfully than he may keep it until further notice if this is the will of God? Can we, therefore make a simple equation of self-destruction with self-murder? Have we not to take into account the possibility that suicide might not be committed as a crime and therefore as murder, but in faith and therefore in peace with God? Obviously these are dangerous questions. Do they not open again a door which ought to be finally closed? But what right have we not to face these problems? They are surely a legitimate and even necessary consolation when we think of some of those perhaps very near EN46

there is no escape

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[411]

to us whom we have had to see walking this dark road. At any rate, we must not wax indignant at these questions if in such matters as war or the death penalty we are prepared to say without hesitation that there is a divine commission and command to put others to death. Is our own life so precious that there is an absolute command never to inflict upon it that which in certain circumstances we think we are free and even obliged to inflict on the lives of others, namely, putting an end to them? Why should there not be in this case, too, the exception when killing is not murder? According to Jud. 1630 Samson deliberately killed himself along with the Philistines. But only a very curious exegesis would classiry him with Saul, Ahithophel and Judas. By our standards Samson was certainly a very dubious saint. Yet the Old Testament sets him in the light rather than the shadows, and according to Heb. 1132 he and other rather uncouth figures from the Book of Judges are given a place with Abraham, Moses, David and Samuel in the "cloud of witnesses" (Heb. 121) for New Testament faith. As seen by the Bible, he was certainly not a suicide.

At this point caution is demanded on both sides. We must avoid any arbitrary denial of the possibility of the exception. But we are also to avoid the even more arbitrary assumption that exceptions are not uncommon. Though not impossible, the exception is rare and extraordinary. So many other forms of surrender and self-sacrifice are required of man. So many other applications of Rom. 121 and Col. 35 are obvious and unequivocal. So many other possibilities of total obedience and commitment have first to be taken into account and give rise to no corresponding problems. If the possibility of Samson has sometimes to be considered, it can be only at the extreme limit when others have first been examined with final seriousness and there can be no doubt whatever that this is the will of God and is therefore to be adopted. Can we exclude it? Can we be sure that among thousands and thousands there is not just one perhaps who may be genuinely and legitimately called to take this strange action? (We shall have to consider the same question, and with the same stringency, when we discuss the possibility of killing others.) Again, we must remember on the one hand that there are not merely hypothetical but historically real situations in the light of which the thought obtrudes that the exception has arisen when self-destruction is not merely permitted but commanded. Yet on the other hand we have also to consider that these situations must not be classified or codified so that we may know that in certain circumstances we are confronted by the exception. While it cannot be denied that there are situations in which God may actually give man the freedom, permission and command to destroy himself, so that he cannot be regarded as a suicide in the bad sense, yet this does not mean that we can decide what these situations are or what kind of self-destruction is not suicide but an act of obedience in harmony with the requirement of respect for life. The desire to make this decision is perhaps as such a basic form of the frivolity which must not in any circumstances hold sway in this sphere. Ambrose (De virg., III, 7) gives us a favourable and even enthusiastic account of the mar-

2.

The Protection of Life

tyrdom of St. Pelagia in the neighbourhood of Antioch. Vacua praesidio, sed Deo pleniorEN47, she flees from her pursuers who plan to rob her either of her faith or her chastity. Followed by her mother and sisters, she makes her way to a swiftlyflowing river which, though it bars their path, also offers them a way of deliverance. Quid veremur? inquiunt. Ecce aqua, quis nos baptizari prohibet? Et hoc baptisma est, quo peccata donantur, post quod nemo delinquit. virgines jacit.

Excipiat

Excipiat

nos aqua,

regna quaeruntur.

nos aqua, quae regenerare consuevit. quae coelum aperit, infirmos

Et hoc baptisma est,

Excipiat

nos aqua, quae

tegit, mortem abscondit,

martyres

Asking God to permit that even outwardly they should not be separated in death, sed sit una constantia, una mors, una etiam sepulturaEN49, they chastely gather up their clothes, take each other's hands as if for a dance (tamquam choros ducerent), and throw themselves into the deepest and most turbulent part of the river, the mother with the final cry: Has tibi hostias, Christe, immolo, praesules castitatis, duces itineris, comites passionisEN50• There can be no doubt that this is in its own way a fine story. Similarly, Eusebius of Caesarea, Jerome and Chrysostom all speak favourably of self-destruction in such cases, especially where women are concerned. Augustine was prudent enough (De civ. Dei, I, 16-27) to withhold any general approbation, permission or direction in favour of self-destruction even in such a situation, since neither the faith, the spiritual chastity, nor even in a true sense the physical, is so endangered by the wicked violence of others as to warrant the general statement that self-destruction is here legitimate or obligatory (loc. cit., 8 and 25)' Yet he too (loc. cit., 26), not merely in deference to the Church which had declared such women to be saints, but for obvious material reasons, made the decisive reservation: Quid, si enum hoc jecerunt, non humanitus deceptae, sed divinitus iussae, nee errantes, sed oboedientes ?EN51 He, too, reminds us of Samson, of whom one could hardly expect anything different. He, too, makes an interesting reference to the soldier who must kill in obedience to the command of his superior officer. redditEN48•

Cum autemDeus

iubet, seque iubere sine ullis ambagibus intimat,

quis obsequium pietatis accusetEN52•

Hence, even though we read: "Thou shalt not kill," we must still do so when ordered by someone whose command may not be disregarded. Good care must be taken, however, to see to it that the divine command has been issued beyond any possibility of doubt. Augustine, then, does not pronounce a verdict which is diametrically opposed to that of the earlier fathers-"for what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him" (1 Cor. 211). He simply wants it to be plainly understood that no one may take his own life merely to escape from temporal troubles, or for fear of the threat of others' sins, or in despair at his own sins, or out of longing for death, seeing that self-destruction for these purely human reasons is an arbitrary act and therefore falls under the concept of murder. At this point it is as well to consider no less carefully a question which has unfortunately become acute again in our own day, namely, whether a man may and should kill himself when there is danger that under torture he may betray his friends and cause, and thus directly or indirectly deny his faith. He can indeed have the freedom to do this if God gives it.

EN47 EN48

EN49 EN50

EN51

EN52

Empty of defence, but fuller still of God "What do we fear," they ask. "Here is water; who prevents us from being baptized? And this is a baptism by which sins are forgiven and kingdoms are obtained. And this is a baptism after which no one lapses. Let this water, which opens heaven, protects the weak, leaves death behind, and creates martyrs, receive us." but that they should be one in constancy, one in death, even one in burial Christ, I offer to you these victims, princesses of chastity, duchesses of the Christian way, coun tesses of suffering What if they did this, not deceived in their humanity, but inspired by divinity, not in error, but in obedience When, however, God gives a command, and makes known his command without any ambiguity, who will lay a charge against piety's obedience?

[412]

~ 55. Freedom for Life And he should then use it joyfully, resolutely and with a good rather than a doubtful conscience. He should not do so, however, in any other circumstances. Nor is the freedom selfevidently given in such a case. The same reserve on both sides is appropriate in other instances in which there might seem to be even stronger reasons for thinking the exception to be legitimate, or conversely in which a third party might fail to see any such reasons. It is not the greater or lesser cogency of human reasons which decides in this matter, let alone what a third party thinks may be perceived, approved or declined, but exclusively the judgment of God, which in the last analysis we must all hear in every actual or conceivable situation after considering the human arguments on both sides. In spite of strong reasons in favour of self-destruction, the decision may go against it, or vice versa. As Augustine rightly says, the command of God must be obeyed as it is given.

[413]

Here as elsewhere the possibility of the exceptional case is the particular possibility of God Himself. Nor should we merely persuade ourselves that this is given us. It is casuistical frivolity to try to do so. This is something we can only be told. If a man kills himself without being ordered to do so, then his action is murder. God may forgive him, but it is still murder, so that none can will to perpetrate it with uplifted head ifhe has faith in the gracious God who forgives sins. This warning may aptly be our last word on the subject. In our enquiry into th~ relation between the norm and the exception in obedience to the commandment, we now turn to situations in which it is a matter of the killing of one person by another. We have already noted in passing that the gravity of the question is no less but always necessarily greater in this case. There may be a necessary surrender or self-sacrifice of one's own life. But how can it ever be permissible or obligatory to sacrifice that of another? Can any of us be judges in respect of the life or death of others? What scruples there must be at this point regarding the sanctity of human life! What reservations are necessary in respect of the exceptional case! Is it superfluous to interject a word at this juncture on the common crime of murder or homicide in the sense of the civil code? At least it is not superfluous to recall, on the basis ofMt. 521-26, that the so-called offender against the life of his fellows in the primitive sense is to be found in a preliminary form in all men, even though it does not usually result in the crime itself. In most of us the murderer is suppressed and chained, possibly by the command of God, or possibly by no more than circumstances, convention, or the fear of punishment. Yet he is very much alive in his cage, and ready to leap out at any time. This is revealed by the amazing ease with which, in spite of every deterrent, war has always been approved and even en.thusiasticallywelcomed and vigorously prosecuted not merely by individuals but by whole nations. It is pertinent that when the shooting of traitors became necessary in Switzerland in the Second World War, an astonishing number of volunteers is said to have offered for this melancholy duty. How are we to explain this? Even if we had not already learned it from Dostoievski, the experiences of our own day have surely taught us that we can no longer have any illusions as to what is dormant even in the heart of the average man in this respect. The presence of this sinister factor, of this "Hitler within us," can be verified in almost all of us by occasional dreams.

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Homo homini lUpUSEN53• There exists in man a very deep-seated and almost original evil readiness and lust to kill. The common murderer or homicide is simply the one in whom the wolf slips the chain. This is no excuse. It must not obstruct his lawful punishment. But it means that his action is a question addressed to all others and an accusation against them, not merely in the sense that his social environment is partly responsible for the loosing of the wolf in him, but in the sense that this wolf is only too well known to all those who belong to the same society. Moreover, the point has also to be considered that no single man and therefore no criminal is identical with the indwelling wolf. It is not his nature. It belongs to the corruption of his nature. All men know, either in an obscure and feeble or perhaps a clear and forceful way, that they are ordained and disposed to respect human life, and this in a far more original form than can be said of the evil readiness to kill. In this respect, too, man has been created good and not evil. At bottom, he knows very well that the life of his fellow-man is sacred and protected against him, and that he ought not to murder. Even if he does kill, and kills arbitrarily, criminally and murderously, whether from hunger for bread or money, from exotic lust or passion, or from revenge or pure delight in killing, he does not do so without at least trying to justify himself by one or other of these motives. The outbreak of the wolf in him does not take place directly, but as he believes the exceptional case has been reached when he may let the wolf howl and then break loose. It is the way in which he assumes the exceptional case and thus tries to justify himself which makes him a criminal killer, a murderer. The distinction between murder and homicide in the sense of premeditated and unpremeditated killing is a legal fiction which may perhaps be applied legitimately in the civil punishment of the culprit, but which has no relevance in the ethical appraisal of his action. What distinguishes the hot-blooded from the cold-blooded killer is, of course, the quicker tempo, the shortening of procedure. It might well be argued against the homicide, whose case the lawyer regards as the easier, that the only thing which he decided rapidly was the manner of killing. And it might be argued in favour of the murderer, who a more seriously implicated from the legal standpoint, that he perhaps considered for a longer period whether he should kill at all.

What makes a man an arbitrary killer is that, even though he knows he should not kill, after long or very short deliberation he thinks that he himself can decide that in his own particular case the killing of a man is not murder but ajustifiable, necessary and even incontestable action, the co-existence of this fellow-man with himself and the world at large being so intolerable that he is under obligation to extinguish it. The arbitrary killer thus has his own morality. He is an arbitrary killer, and therefore a murderer, to the degree that this EN53

Human beings behave like wolves to each other

[414]

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[415J

morality is exclusively his private morality, whether carefully weighed or discovered in a lightning flash of intuition. "Private" is derived from privareEN54• He has constructed the exception out of his own sovereign opinion and in accordance with the desiderata EN55 of his situation. Ignoring the doubtful and arbitrary nature of his motives, he has appropriated to himself the right in a single person to act towards his fellow-man the roles of law-giver,judge and executioner. In so doing, he has allowed the wolf to break out. Setting up his private code of morality, independently deciding that the exception has arrived, and thus trying to put himself in the right, he commits a crime, falls under the corresponding guilt, and becomes what even he never meant to be, namely, a murderer. We speak of him because his existence intensifies the warning under which alone we may approach the problems now calling for attention. We have not only to consider that, in virtue of the dark factor latently operative in all men, we are all a little too close to the murderer and are thus inclined to take these problems too lightly. We have also to realise that on every occasion on which even for what seem to be the best of reasons we count on the presence of the exceptional case, we move in the vicinity of the murderer and therefore in a very dangerous neighbourhood. Whenever we dare even think that the killing of men by men is not only not forbidden but even necessary in certain circumstances, there is always the possibility of the same privare, of the same independent construction of the exceptional case on the ground of very dubious and quite arbitrary desires, of the same attempted selfjustification by moral sophistry. In such cases we are always in danger of approving that which the civil law with more or less assurance and consistency condemns as a crime and the command of God as a sin. The line which keeps us from falling under this condemnation will always be razor sharp, and how near we shall sometimes be to crossing it! But if this is a warning to be most circumspect, it must not deter us from being prepared point by point even in this dangerous neighbourhood to stand by the truth that at some time or other, perhaps on the far frontier of all other possibilities, it may have to happen in obedience to the commandment that men must be killed by men. We mention first the problem of the deliberate interruption of pregnancy usually called abortion (abortus, the suppression of the fruit of the body). This question arises where conception has taken place but for varying reasons the birth and existence of the child are not desired and are perhaps even feared. The persons concerned are the mother who either carries out the act or desires or permits it, the more or less informed amateurs who assist her, perhaps the scientifically and technically trained physician, the father, relatives or other third parties who allow, promote, assist or favour the execution of the act and therefore share responsibility, and in a wider but no less strict sense the EN54 EN 55

to deprive preferences

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societYwhose conditions and mentality directly or indirectly call for such acts and whose laws may even permit them. The means employed vary from the most primitive to relatively sophisticated, but these need not concern us in the first instance. Our first contention must be that no pretext can alter the fact that the whole circle of those concerned is in the strict sense engaged in the killing of human life. For the unborn child is from the very first a child. It is still developing and has no independent life. But it is a man and not a thing, nor a mere part of the mother's body. The embryo has its own autonomy, its own brain, its own nervous system, its own blood circulation. If its life is affected by that of the mother, it also affects hers. It can have its own illnesses in which the mother has no part. Conversely, it may be quite healthy even though the mother is seriously ill. It may die while the mother continues to live. It may also continue to live after its mother's death, and be eventually saved by a timely operation on her dead body. In short, it is a human being in its own right. I take this and other information from the book by Charlot Strasser, Der Arzt und das keimende Leben, 1948 (cf. also Alfred Labhardt, Die Abtreibungsjrage,

1 926)

.

Before proceding, we must underline the fact that he who destroys germinating life kills a man and thus ventures the monstrous thing of decreeing concerning the life and death of a fellow-man whose life is given by God and therefore, like his own, belongs to Him. He desires to discharge a divine office, or, even if not, he accepts responsibility for such discharge, by daring to have the last word on at least the temporal form of the life of his fellow-man. Those directly or indirectly involved cannot escape this responsibility. At this point again we have first and supremely to hear the great summons to halt issued by the command. Can 'we accept this responsibility? May this thing be? Must it be? Whatever arguments may be brought against the birth and existence of the child, is it his fault that he is here? What has he done to his mother or any of the others that they wish to deprive him of his germinating life and punish him with death? Does not his utter defencelessness and helplessness, or the question whom they are destroying, to whom they are denying a future even before he has breathed and seen the light of the world, wrest the weapon from the hand of his mother first, and then from all the others, thwarting their will to use it? Moreover, this child is a man for whose life the Son of God has died, for whose unavoidable part in the guilt of all humanity and future individual guilt He has already paid the price. The true light of the world shines already in the darkness of the mother's womb. And yet they want to kill him deliberately because certain reasons which have nothing to do with the child himself favour the view that he had better not be born! Is there any emergency which can justify this? It must surely be clear to us that until the question is put in all its gravity a serious discussion of the problem cannot even begin, let alone lead to serious results. The mediaeval period, which in this case extended right up to the end of the 18th century, was therefore quite right in its presuppositions when it regarded and punished abortion as murder. It is indeed an action which in innumerable cases obviously has the character

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of murder, of an irresponsible killing which is both callous and wicked, and in which one or more or perhaps all the participants play more or less consciously an objectively horrible game. If only the rigour with which the past judged and acted in this matter, as in child murder strictly speaking, had been itself more just and not directed against the relatively least guilty instead of the relatively most guilty! If only its draconian attitude had at least made an impression on the consciousness of the people and formed even in later recollection an effective dyke against this crime! But it obviously failed to do this. For no sooner had this attitude decayed externally than its inner strength also collapsed, and transgression swept in full flood over the land. In the circumstances there is something almost horribly respectable in the attitude of the Roman Church. Never sparing in its extreme demands on women, it has to this day remained inveterate and never changed its course an inch in this matter. In the encyclical Casti connubii of 1930 (Ene. 2242 f.), deliberate abortion is absolutely forbidden on any grounds, so that even Roman Catholic nuns raped when the Russians invaded Germany in 1945 were not allowed to free themselves from the consequences in this way. This attitude of the Roman Church is undoubtedly impressive in contrast to the terrible deterioration, to what one might almost call the secret and open mass murder, which is the modern vogue and custom in this respect among so-called civilised peoples. This can be partly explained by the social and psychological conditions in which modern man finds himself, and by the estrangement from the Church and palpable paganism of the modern masses, the age of the corpus Christianum EN56 being now, as it seems, quite definitely a thing of the past. But there is more to it than this. It concerns both the rich and the poor, both those who suffer and are physically in danger and innumerable others who are in full or at least adequate possession of their spiritual balance. Nor is it restricted to the so-called world; it continues to penetrate deeply into the Christian community. It is a simple fact that the automatic restraint of the recognition that every deliberate interruption of pregnancy, whatever the circumstances, is a taking of human life, seems to have been strangely set aside in the widest circles in spite of our increasing biological appreciation of the facts. Even worse, the possibility of deliberate killing is sometimes treated as if it were just a ready expedient and remedy in a moment of embarrassment, nothing more being at issue than an unfortunate operation like so many others. In short, it can be and is done. Even official statistics tell us in a striking way how it can be and is done; and we may well suspect that these figures fall far short of the reality. It remains to be seen how legal regulation will finally work out where it is introduced, but the first result always seems to be a violent campaign for the widest possible interpretation. Who is to saywhere the error and wickedness operative in this matter have their ultimate origin? Are they to be traced to the morality or immorality of the women and girls who are obviously for some reason troubled or distressed at their condition? Do they lie in the brutality or thoughtlessness of the men concerned? Are they to be sought in the offer of the sinister gentleman who makes use of both? Are we to look to the involved lack of conscientiousness in some medical circles? Do they originate in a general increase of self-pity in face of the injustices of life, which were surely just as great in the past as they are to-day? Or do they arise from a general decline in the individual and collective sense of responsibility? We certainly cannot close our eyes to these happenings. Nor can we possibly concur in this development. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that the abstract prohibition which was pronounced in the past, and which is still the only contribution of Roman Catholicism in this matter, is far too forbidding and sterile to promise any effective help. EN56

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The fact that a definite No must be the presupposition of all further discussion cannot be contested, least of all to-day. The question arises, however, how this No is to be established and stated if it is to be a truly effective No. In face of the wicked violation of the sanctity of human life which is always seriously at issue in abortion, and which is always present when it is carried out thoughtlessly and callously, the only thing which can help is the power of a wholly new and radical feeling of awe at the mystery of all human life as this is commanded by God as its Creator, Giver and Lord. Legal prohibitions and restrictions of a civil, moral and supposedly spiritual kind are obviously inadequate to instil this awe into man. Nor does mere churchmanship, whether Romanist or Protestant, provide the atmosphere in which this awe can thrive. The command of God is based on His grace. He summons man to the freedom in which he may live instead of having to live. At root, the man who thinks he must live cannot and will not respect life, whether his own or that of others, far less the life of an unborn child. If it is for him a case of "must" rather than "may," he lacks perspective and understanding in relation to what life is. He is already burdened and afflicted with his own life. He will only too readily explore and exploit all the supposed possibilities by which to shield himself from life which is basically hostile. He will also fall in to the mistake of thinking that the life of the unborn child is not really human life at all, and thus draw the inference that he has been given a free hand to maintain or destroy it. Mothers, fathers, advisers, doctors, lawgivers, judges and others whom it may concern to desire, permit, execute or approve this action, will act and think in true understanding of the meaning of human life, and therefore with serious reluctance to take such a step, only if they themselves realise that human life is not something enforced but permitted, i.e., that it is freedom and grace. In these circumstances they will not be at odds with life, whether their own or that of their fellows. They will not always desire to be as comfortable as possible in relation to it. They will not simply take the line of least resistance in what they think and do concerning it. Those who live by mercy will always be disposed to practise mercy, especially to a human being which is so dependent on the mercy of others as the unborn child. This brings us back to the point at which we cannot evade the question where was and is the witness of the Protestant Church in face of this rising flood of disaster. This' Church knows and has the Word of the free mercy of God which also ascribes and grants freedom to man. It could and can tell and show a humanity which is tormented by life because it thinks it must live it, that it may do so. It could and can give it this testimony of freedom, and thus appeal effectively for the protection of life, inscribing upon its heart and conscience a salutary and resolute No to all and therefore to this particular destruction of human life. Hence it neither could nor can range itselfwith the Roman Catholic Church and its hard preaching of the Law.It must proclaim its own message in this matter, namely, the Gospel. In so doing, however, it must not underbid the severity of the Roman Catholic No. It must overbid its abstract and negative: "Thou shalt not," by the force of its positive: "Thou mayest," in which, of course, the corresponding: "Thou mayest not," is included, the No having the force not merely of the word of man but of the Word of God. The Protestant Church had and has this

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Word of God for man but against his depravity in so far as its task was and is to bear witness to it. For this reason it cannot have clean hands in face of the disastrous development. It need not enquire whether or not it has restrained this development, or may still do so. The truth is plain that it has not been faithful to its own commission in the past, but that its attitude has resembled far too closely that of the Roman Church, i.e., that it has been primarily a teacher of the Law. The truth is also plain that only now is it beginning to understand its commission, and that it has not yet grasped it with a firm hand. It is still almost with joy that we hear perspicacious doctors, perhaps of very different beliefs (cf. Lk. 168), express a view which the Protestant Church, if it had listened and borne witness to the Word of God, ought to have stated and championed long since, namely, the kindly and understanding No which will prevail as such.

At this point it may be interjected that, when this No is established as a divine No, namely, when it is in virtue of the liberating grace of God that deliberate abortion is irrefutably seen to be sin, murder and transgression, it cannot possibly be maintained that there is no forgiveness for this sin. However dangerous it might sound in relation to all that has been said thus far, it must also be said that in faith, and in a vicariously intercessory faith for others too, there is a forgiveness which can be appropriated even for this sin, even for the great modern sin of abortion. God the Creator, who by His grace acquits and liberates man that he may live and let live in the most serious sense, who in and by this liberation claims man incontestably as the great protector of life, who inexorably reveals the true character of man's transgression as sin-this God is our Father inJesus Christ, in whom He has not rejected sinful man but chosen him for Himself and reconciled him to Himself, in whom He Himself has intervened for sinful man who has violated His command, in order that the latter may not be lost to him even in and by reason of this terrible transgression. God sees and understands and loves even modern man in and in spite of all the dreadful confusions and entanglements of his collective and individual existence, including this one. Those who see themselves placed by the Gospel in the light of the relevant command, and are thus forced to admit that they, too, ate in some degree entangled in this particular transgression, and are willing, therefore, to accept solidarity with more blatant transgressors, cannot and will not let go the fact, nor withhold it from others, that the same Gospel which reveals this with such dreadful clarity is the Gospel which, proclaiming the kingdom of God to all, summons all to repentance and promises and offers forgiveness to all. Nor does it weaken the command and its unconditional requirement that the one free grace, which in its one dimension unmasks sin as such, implies in the other that God has loved this sinful world in such a way that He has given His Son, and in Him Himself, on its behalf, that it should not perish. Without this second dimension we cannot really understand the first. Indeed, only those who really grasp the promise of divine forgiveness will necessarily realise that sin as such is inexorably opposed by the divine No, and will never be able to keep this either from themselves or others.

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If the No is securely grounded as seen from this angle, it inevitably raises here, too, the problem of the exception. Human life, and therefore the life of the unborn child, is not an absolute, so that, while it can be protected by the commandment, it can be so only within the limits of the will of Him who issues it. It cannot claim to be preserved in all circumstances, whether in relation to God or to other men, i.e., in this case to the mother, father, doctor and others involved. In His grace God can will to preserve the life which He has given, and in His grace He can will to take it again. Either way, it is not lost before Him. Men cannot exercise the same sovereignty in relation to it. It does not really lie in their power even to preserve it. And only by an abuse of their power, by a sinister act of overweening arrogance, can they wilfully take it. But they do have the power, and are thus commissioned, to do in the service of God and for the preservation of life that which is humanly possible if not finally decisive. Trained in the freedom which derives from the grace of God, they can choose and will only the one thing. In the case of the unborn, the mother, father, doctor (whose very vocation is to serve the preservation and development of life) and all concerned, can desire only its life and healthy birth. How can they possibly will the opposite? They can do so only on the presupposition of their own blindness towards life, in bondage to the opinion that they must live rather than that they may live, and therefore out of anxiety, i.e., out of gracelessness and therefore godlessness. On the other hand, they cannot set their will absolutely upon the preservation of this life, or rather upon the service of its preservation. They all stand in the service of God. He orders them to serve its preservation and therefore the future birth of the child. There is an almost infinite number of objections to the possibility of willing anything else in obedience to Him. But it is not quite infinite. If a man knows that he is in God's service and wills to be obedient to Him, can he really swear that he will never on any occasion will anything else as God may require? What grounds have we for the absolute thesis that in no circumstances can God will anything but the preservation of a germinating life, or make any other demand from the mother, father, doctor or others involved? If He can will that this germinating life should die in some other way, might He not occasionally do so in such a way as to involve the active participation of these other men? How can we deny absolutely that He might have commissioned them to serve Him in this way, and that their action has thus been performed, and had to be performed, in this service? How, then can we indict them in these circumstances? This is the exceptional case which calls for discussion. In squarely facing it, we are not opening a side-door to the crime which is so rampant in this sphere. We refer to God's possibility and His specific command. We cannot try to exclude this. Otherwise the No which has to be pronounced in every other case is robbed of its force. For, as we have seen, it is truly effective only as the divine No. Hence no human No can or should be given the last word. The human No must let itself be limited. God can limit this human No, and, if He 93

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does so, it is simply human obstinacy and obduracy and transgression to be absolutely logical and to try to execute the No unconditionally. Let us be quite frank and say that there are situations in which the killing of germinating life does not constitute murder but is in fact commanded. We hasten to lay down some decisive qualifications. For these will be situations in which all the arguments for preservation have been carefully considered and properly weighed, and yet abortion remains as ultima ratioEN57• If all the possibilities of avoiding this have not been taken into account in this decision, then murder is done. Genuine exceptions will thus be rare. If they occur too often, and thus become a kind of second rule, we have good reason to suspect that collective and individual transgression and guilt are entailed. Again, they will be situations in which all those concerned must answer before God in great loneliness and secrecy, and make their decision accordingly. If the decision has any other source; if it is only the result of their subjective reflection and agreement, this fact alone is enough to show that we are not dealing with the genuine exception in which this action is permitted and commanded. With these qualifications, there are undoubtedly situations of this kind. And we can and must add that, even if only in general terms and in the sense of a guiding line, these situations may always be known by the concrete fact that in them a choice must be made for the protection of life, one life being balanced against another, i.e., the life of the unborn child against the life or health of the mother, the sacrifice of either the one or the other being unavoidable. It is hard to see why in such cases the life of the child should always be given absolute preference, as maintained in Roman Catholic ethics. To be sure, we cannot and must not maintain, on the basis of the commandment, that the life and health of the mother must always be saved at the expense of the life of the child. There may well be mothers who for their part are ready to take any risk for their unborn children, and how can we forbid them to do so? On the basis of the command, however, we can learn that when a choice has to be made between the life or health of the mother and that of the child, the destruction of the child in the mother's womb might be permitted and commanded, and with the qualifications already mentioned a human decision might thus be taken to this effect. It goes without saying that the greatest possible care must be exercised in its practical execution. That is to say, it cannot be left to the mother herself or to quacks, but is a matter for the experienced and trained physician. More detailed consideration would take us rather beyond the sphere of ethics. The question obviously arises in what particular circumstances and from what standpoint the life of the mother might be regarded as in peril, and therefore this alternative indicated. To try to answer this question, however, is to expose oneself to the risk of making assertions which inevitably prove to be either too broad or too narrow from the EN57

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standpoint of ethics, especially theological ethics. We must be content, therefore, simply to make our general point. Physicians and lawyers speak in terms of the "indication" of abortion, a distinction being made between medical (whethe~ somatic or psychiatric) on the one side and social on the other. The SwissPenal Code regards it as non-indictable in an emergency, generally defined as a danger to life, body, freedom, honour or capacity, which cannot be averted in any other way (S 34). In practice, however, it allows it only where there exists an immediate danger which cannot otherwise be warded off, or the risk of severe and permanent injury to the health of the pregnant woman. It also insists that it be undertaken by a certified doctor who is under obligation to report it to the responsible cantonal authorities (S 120). It will be seen that this is in line with what we have just said. It must be remembered, however, that by no means every action allowed and exempted from punishment even on a strict, less alone a laxer, interpretation of these rules is for this reason permitted and enjoined ethically, i.e., by the command of God, as if those involved did not have to keep to a much narrower restriction of "indication" than that of the law. On the other hand, while Swiss legislation finds valid reason for abortion in an emergency affecting the life or body of the pregnant woman, the same does not hold good of an emergency affecting her freedom, honour or capacity. This means that, whereas medical "indication" is fully accepted, sound reasons are seen for not including social, and therefore for its implicit rejection. It does not follow, however, that a doctor is generally and radically guilty of transgressing the command of God, though he may expose himself to legal penalty, ifhe thinks he should urge a socio-medical "indication," i.e., in terms of a threat presented to the physical or mental life of the mother, or of economic or environmental conditions. For occasionally the command of God may impose a judgment and action which go beyond what is sanctioned by the law,and this may sometimes serve as a summons to all of us to consider that a sound social policy might well be a most powerful weapon in the struggle against criminal abortion. The legal rules are obviously useful, and even have an indirect ethical value as general directions to those involved, particularly doctors and judges. On the other hand, they are not adapted to serve as ethical criteria, since obedience to the command of God must have the freedom to move within limits which may sometimes be narrower and sometimes broader than even the best civil law. The exceptional case in the ethical sense is in general something very different from an extension of the permissible and valid possibilities established by human law.

The required calculation and venture in the decision between life and death obviously cannot be subject to any human law, because no such law can grasp the fulness of healthy or sick, happy or unhappy, preserved or neglected human life, let alone the freedom of the divine command and the obedience which we owe to it. Hence we shall have to be content with the following observations, 1. For all concerned what must be at stake must be life against life, nothing other nor less, if the decision is not to be a wrong decision and the resultant action murder either of the child or the mother. 2. There is always required the most scrupulous calculation and yet also a resolute venture with a conscience which is bound and therefore free. Where such thought as is given is only careless or clouded, and the decision weak and hesitant, sin couches at the door. 3. The calculation and venture must take place before God and in responsibility to Him. Otherwise, how can there possibly be obedience, and how can the content be good and right, even though apparently good human reasons andjustification might be found in one direction or another? 4. Since

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This is a type of killing which can be regarded only as murder, i.e., as a wicked usurpation of God's sovereign right over life and death. A man who is not, or is no longer, capable of work, of earning, of enjoyment and even perhaps of communication, is not for this reason unfit to live, least of all because he cannot render to the existence of the state any notable or active contribution, but can only directly or indirectly become a burden to it. The value of this kind of life is God's secret. Those around and society as a whole may not find anything in it, but this does not mean that they have a right to reject and liquidate it. Who can really see the true and inward reality of this type of life? Who can really know whether it may not be far more precious in the eyes of God, or reveal itself as far more glorious in eternity, than the lives of hundreds of healthy workers and peasants, technicians, scientists, artists and soldiers, which the state rates so highly? Nor is it any argument that the state may and should permit a similar verdict in certain cases, e.g., the imposition of a capital sentence on criminals or as a defensive measure in times of war. The incurably infirm or the cripple is not a criminal or an enemy of the state against whom EN58

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the state may claim this right in self-preservation. On the contrary, he may well be to some extent a victim of the gaps and deficiencies in the existing order of society and the state. It may well be that society and the state really owe him much compensation. At all events, he is no aggressor; he is a suffering member of society and the state. As such he has been entrusted to the very particular protection and support of the community. No community, whether family, village or state, is really strong ifit will not carry its weak and even its very weakest members. They belong to it no less than the strong, and the quiet work of their maintenance and care, which might seem useless on a superficial view, is perhaps far more effective than common labour, culture or historical conflict in knitting it closely and securely together. On the other hand, a community which regards and treats its weak members as a hindrance, and even proceeds to their extermination, is on the verge of collapse. The killing of the weak for the sake of others hampered by.their weakness can rest only on a misconception of the life which in its specific form, and therefore even in its weakness, is always given by God and should therefore be an object of respect to others. And the result of this misconception can only be murder, and not in any sense obedience to the command of God. Indeed, the misconception itself, the whole idea of unfitness to live, is already transgression. It is hard to see, therefore, how there can be any legitimate exception in this kind of killing any more than in murder or homicide in the usual sense. It can be justified only by the same sophistries as those with which, as we have seen, the common murderer or homicide seeks to justify himself. Euthanasia is the sonorous Greek term often used to try to make the matter to which we have just alluded seem less objectionable. By means of a gentle, painless and almost beautiful death, those whose life is supposedly a burden to the community may be conveyed to the other world. But the same word is normally used to-day to denote another kind of allegedly justifiable killing. It implies the killing which in certain cases of advanced and painful illness is offered as a favour to the sick person himself and to relatives who suffer with him. It is presented as a shortening of his mental and physical tortures by the terminating of his temporal existence in a way which, with the help of means which modern technical mastery has put at our disposal, is not merely efficient but painless, the sick person often meeting his end in a condition of euphory. Euthanasia in this sense is a specific problem for medical ethics involving also the patient and his relatives. But the request has also been made that this kind of killing should be legally normalised like abortion, and declared permissible within the defined limits. Hence, it can hardly be contested that it may soon become a public question. At a certain extreme stage in the treatment of a patient, is there not a point where the doctor can no longer help him back to life and where he may thus put an end to his suffering by helping him to die, even if only in the form of mercifully not applying means for the artificial prolongation of his life? In such a case, may not the patient ask the doctor to

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do this, and has he not a right to see the request granted? May not the relatives, either in agreement with the patient or even without his consent if he can no longer decide for himself, advance the same request with the same right? Can we not think of an ideal case in which patient, relatives and doctor all arrive at this decision? In such an event, could we really describe its execution as murder? These are tempting questions. But for all their impressiveness, they contain too much sophistry for those who are directed by the command of God to be able to give an affirmative answer. All honour to the well-meaning humanitarianism of underlying motive! But the derivation is obviously from another book than that which we have thus far consulted. Nor do subjectively wellmeaning motives change wrong into right. The central insight in this whole complex of problems is that it is for God and God alone to make an end of human life, and that man should help in this only when he has a specific and clear command from God. But this is plainly left out of account by the sponsors of euthanasia in a most arbitrary if well-meaning way. Why should it not sometimes be a blessing to all men, and therefore not merely to more or less acute sufferers, though naturally for them too and perhaps especially, to be able to put a final end to everything in death. Dying no less than living, however, can be a blessing only to the man to whom it comes, and by whom it is received, from God. But how can the participants in euthanasia really know, or, even if they agree, how can they be quite certain, that even the life afflicted with the severest suffering has ceased to be the blessing which God intends for this person? How can they be sure that as now lived it is not the supreme form of divine blessing? Again, how do they know that the death which is to be deliberately encompassed will really be the intended blessing for the patient if arbitrarily contrived by man in this way? How do they know that, even though the patient himself desires it, they are not inflicting on him the most grievous suffering by taking his life? From these two angles, how may we know that we are really helping a human being by assisting him to die? How can we dare either to kill or to let ourselves be killed on the basis of an assumption which is in any case uncertain and which from the standpoint of faith in God can be described only as rash and therefore unpromising. We may consider the various aspects in detail (cf. for what follows William Hordern, "Some Reflections on Euthanasia," in Christianity and Crisis, 1950, No.6). The desire and perhaps even the impetuous craving for euthanasia on the part of the patient himself, i.e., the factor which, if present, most easily justifies the intended step, cannot really be understood otherwise than as a form of selfdestruction. The only difference is that the patient is no longer able to carry out his express desire, and therefore the doctor is called in to do it for him. The same question as had to be put in the case of self-destruction has to be raised in this case too. How can that which the patient wants to happen be distinguished from suicide? It is hardly enough that he has only days or weeks before him, so that the desired killing simply shortens a life already doomed to eternity. For one thing, this is by no means certain. For another, it might be pleaded in relative justification of direct suicide that the man who commits it is usually evading the expected discomfort of what may

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still be quite a long life, and that he has thus better cause for his action than the sick person who in any case has not long to wait for release from his sufferings. There can be little doubt that if the direct suicide is wrong, so is the sick man as an indirect. Is he reallyjustified by the mere fact that he wills to grant himself, or to cause himself to be granted, this very dubious favour? We now turn to the relatives. If euthanasia were a regular practice, not infrequently they and not the sick man himself would have to give the decisive consent or make the decisive request. But even if they do this with the consent of the patient, it has still to be considered, especially by themselves, whether their assent might not be based on less noble motives, e.g., their own release from the pain caused them by the pain of the sick person, or their escape from the burden which his life has become to them, or even more selfish reasons for desiring his death. Even in the ideal case in which their agreement derives from the highest form of love, and they honestly wish to see a term set to the sufferings of the patient, and can see no other way to achieve this, we have still to face the very difficult question whether it is really a blessing which they confer on him by hastening his end. Who has the right to look upon this as a blessing, and therefore to "give up" the life of a sick person, to let his life ebb away, or even to encompass his death? Is it really conceivable that the relatives of a sufferer who love him genuinely, i.e., not arbitrarily but in human lowliness, will not do all that they can to care for him, to relieve him, to uphold to the very end his strength and courage in the fight against his illness, rather than desiring, willing, allowing or doing anything to hasten his death? Are they not murderers if they choose the latter course? Finally, we come to the crucial figure of the doctor. In the presence of the patient and the relatives, and supremely of God, it is he who must decide whether the life in question is in any case doomed, and therefore whether a deliberate shortening of the process might be considered. He has to make an expert decision whether euthanasia may be applied. And he has then to execute the decision, i.e., to do the actual killing. Is it really possible for him to bear the responsibility of making this decision with all that it entails, when there seem to be cases in which someone who has been declared hopelessly ill or moribundusEN59 by all the authorities has nevertheless regained health? What if he had been assisted to a premature death? Is the risk of such premature killing in the one case the price of the doubtful favour which the doctor may confer in other relatively more certain cases? Can it be concealed that extension of medical authority in this direction will inevitably compromise severely the medical profession as such? Is it not the task of the doctor, sometimes in opposition to the united views and wishes of both patient and relatives, to be the unconditional and indefatigable servant of life and its preservation, development and recovery? Can he also be at his own discretion a servan t of death?

When these points are fully weighed, it can hardly be said of this form of deliberate killing that it can ever seem to be really commanded in any emergency, and therefore to be anything but murder. It must be remembered that not only the patient but his relatives and the doctor are all dying men, i.e., those who after the expiry of an unknown period are doomed to die, and that they, too, will have to bear sufferings which might make the shortening of this period seem desirable to them. Is not the same true of all men? What will the end be, therefore, and what will become of our relationship to God and the EN59

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~ 55. Freedom for Life commanded protection of life, if there is to be constant reflection and discussion concerning the fulfilment of arbitrary desires of this kind, and if the possibility of an autonomous curtailment of suffering by the shortening of life may really be regarded as a favour to be shown to various individuals? At what point can this discussion legitimately begin, and where will it end once it has been opened up? When it is a matter of life against life, as in certain cases of abortion, such questions can be raised and answered in harmony with the commandment. But how can this be so when the choice is between life, even though it entail suffering, and death? All things well considered, what else may we say even of euthanasia administered with this intention and in this form but that it cannot possibly be justified before the command of God, and that it cannot therefore be undertaken and executed in obedience to it? This is true even when it is not so much a matter of active killing as of the passive failure to apply the stimulants, so successfully discovered and prepared by the modern pharmaceutical industry, which artificially prolong life, i.e., the action of the heart. We must insist strongly that the same truth applies in such cases too. Yetin this connexion the question also arises whether this kind of artificial prolongation of life does not amount to human arrogance in the opposite direction, whether the fulfilment of medical duty does not threaten to become fanaticism, reason folly,and the required assisting of human life a forbidden torturing of it. A case is at least conceivable in which a doctor might have to recoil from this prolongation of life no less than from its arbitrary shortening. We must await further developments in this sphere to get a clear general picture. But it may well be that in this special sphere we do have a kind of exceptional case. For it is not now a question of arbitrary euthanasia; it is a question of the respect which may be claimed by even the dying life as such.

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We now come to the problem of legitimate or illegitimate killing in selfdefence. We understand by this the resistance which a person offers to the unjustified assault of another on himself or a third party and in the process of which the assailant is killed. This is called killing in self-defence because the one who kills is forced to act by reason of the assault and the absence of police or other assistance to protect his rights. He has no option but to defend himself. He fights back on his own responsibility with whatever weapons are available and in such ways as seem good to him. And the result may sometimes be that the aggressor is killed. The killing thus takes place in self-defence. And the question arises whether he can or should fight back in this way, and if necessary with these fatal consequences, in obedience to the command of God for respect for human life. The SwissPenal Code (~ 33 and 34) defines the nature and limits of self-defence as follows: "If someone is unjustly assaulted or directly threatened with assault, he or any other person isjustified in resisting the assault in any way appropriate to the circumstances. If in this resistance he goes beyond the limits of self-defence, the judge may mitigate the punishment at his own discretion." According to the law, self-defence is legitimate when it is a matter of saving oneself or others, whether in respect of life, body, freedom, or honour, from a direct danger that cannot be averted otherwise, provided always that he who thus acts in self-defence is not responsible for the emergency, and cannot in the circumstances be 100

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regarded as under obligation to yield what is claimed, or cannot know that such obligation rests on the third party whom he is trying to rescue from such danger by his action. It should be noted how carefully this is worded. There is no question of encouraging, let alone commanding self-defence, but only of justifying it. It must be a matter of self-defence against a danger which threatens immediately and which cannot be averted in any other way than by the relevant act of self-defence. Even when the defence is that of a third party, the judge has to ask whether there might not have been a valid obligation to hand over what is threatened. The attack must have taken place without due cause, and the danger must not have been incurred by the one who seeks to avert it. The judge has to consider further whether the act of defence has really been carried out in a way "appropriate to the circumstances." Nevertheless, it is allowed that there may be mitigation of the punishment of those who exceed the limits of selfdefence, obviously because it is done within this whole sphere; the judge may use his own discretion in this respect. Our present enquiry is not legal, but theological and ethical. Hence we do not ask concerning the self-defence which is permissible within certain limits, but concerning that which is required on certain presuppositions. Again, the problem of an eventual mitigation of penalty does not fall in the sphere of our investigation, since ethics cannot give direction as to judging, let alone punishing, but only as to the proper approach to what is right or wrong before God. Nevertheless, it is salutary to keep in view the careful legal definitions of the limits of self-defence, even though as non-experts we may suspect that they are not at all easy to maintain or apply. At all events, we must not fall short of the severity with which the law protests against every form of arbitrariness in the exercise of self-defence. Indeed, we may well be expected to surpass it in this regard.

In order to answer our question concerning killing in self-defence as commanded by God, we must first step back for a moment and try to ascertain whether and to what extent one may even speak of a self-defence which is commanded by God and therefore legitimate. This cannot be taken as a matter of course. When is there such an emergency that for protection of life a man may defend himself against the exercised or threatened violence of another? If, for example, one of my possessions, perhaps one of the most important and precious, is endangered by the attacker, and he is wholly in the wrong, with no culpability on my part, this may make my self-defence justifiable before the civicjudge, and yet be very far from doing so in the sight of God. The instinct which bids us offer self-defence in such a case may be very natural, but this does not mean that it is holy. It requires to be sanctified by the command, and this may give it a very different direction from that originally intended. The divine command, which does not merely permit or justify but actually demands, does not necessarily coincide with what may be done in natural self-defence within the framework of the law. It might order him not to make any use at all of the freedom given him by the law, not to exercise so-called self-defence even within its limits, and therefore not to oppose his own force to that of the other. Nor can there be any doubt that in the first instance the command of God does very definitely point us in this very different direction-so definitely that self-defence seems to be almost entirely excluded. 101

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We should remember that Paul had to reprove Christians (1 Cor. 61-11) even for seeking legal redress in their disputes by appeal to pagan judges. The primary objection is against seeking a verdict from the heathen or "unrighteous" instead of reaching a decision within the congregation (w. 1-6). But then it goes rather deeper: "Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another ~ptfJ-U'Tu). Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren. Know ye not that the unrighteous (/18LKOL) shall not inherit the kingdom of God?" (v. 7 f.). It is to be noted that those involved in an ordinary lawsuit-there is no mention of self-defence in any other sense, let alone of killing in selfdefence-are all of them, plaintiffs as well as defendants, excluded from the kingdom of God as heathen and unrighteous by the mere fact that they go to law against one another. Paul undoubtedly means this, for he goes on at once to say: "Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind ... nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God" (v.9 ff.). "And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified, in the name of the LordJesus, and by the Spirit of our God" (v. 11). Could anything make it clearer than the context of these verses that Paul regards self-defence, even when exercised in the most legal way possible, as no less radically excluded than those other wicked transgressions by the commandment of God, which means for him the subjection of man toJesus Christ and the Holy Spirit? He makes the same point rather more generally but very clearly in the context of and with reference to the whole relationship between Christians and pagans in Rom. 1217-2°: "Recompense no man evil for evil ... Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written. Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord ... Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." And the Sermon on the Mount is particularly relevant in this connexion (Mt. 538-42): ''Yehave heard that it hath been said. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I sayunto you. That ye resist not evil ~~ aV'TLG'T1]VUL 'Tip 7TOVYJPip): but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away."Both here and in Lk. 629f. it is significant that the violent assailant is grouped with the litigant, the beggar and the borrower, and fJ-~ aV'TLG'T1]VUL EN60 applies equally to them all. These are the familiar sayings of the New Testament in this matter. The imminent kingdom, its salvation, and participation in it stand behind them and render them necessary and imperative. This means, however, that Jesus Himself does so as the Christ. We must not overlook them. We must not wrest nor misinterpret them. We must understand and respect them quite literally. We cannot dismiss them simply by admiring or ridiculing them as the product of a heaven-storming idealism, and then placing them in a corner and observing very different rules of life. Nor should we render them innocuous by saying that they naturally have validity only within the Christian community, which may thus be described as a fantastic kingdom of love. Nor are we to silence them by the more sober consideration that the obedience which they require applies only to special orders of the more perfect within the community, the rest being absolved from such far-reaching demands. Nor are they to be discredited because they have been made the basic dogma in a system of absolute nonviolence and non-resistance, as by Leo Tolstoy or Mahatma Gandhi, who blended with them a good deal of ancient Indian wisdom. If Tolstoy and Gandhi were wrong, they were a hundred times nearer the truth with their teachings than are the primitive gospel of the mailed fist and all the doctrines which have tried to blunt the edge of these sayings by the sophistical EN60

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distinction between a sphere in which they are valid and another in which they are not. And it would have been far better if history had known more of the exaggeration of Tolstoy and Gandhi than the opposite. The sayings of the Gospel are among those of which it is said that "they shall not pass away." For they do not merely express the well-meant exaggeration of humanitarianism, nor do they simply constitute a special rule for good or particularly good Christians. They declare the simple command of God which is valid for all men in its basic and primary sense, and which is thus to be kept until further notice. They do not refer to a peak of enthusiasm to which the obedient must finally climb; they refer soberly and realistically to a basis from which they must continually start and to which they must continually return in obedience. They give us the rule, whereas the rest of oar discussion can deal only with exceptions.

On further consideration, it is not so "natural" as it appears that even in respect of one's own life force should be met by force, aggression byaggression, disorder by disorder. To hit back when I am struck is a very dubious defence against the danger in which my assailant has brought me. My life is not actually helped by my doing this, whether physically or spiritually. Strictly speaking, does not the real emergency arise when I enter the cycle and become an aggressor in turn? We may consider the process in its simplest form. An unfriendly word is spoken to me by another. I feel that I may and should respond to his unfriendliness in terms at least as unfriendly. I do so. Yet I cannot conceal the fact that in so doing I do not find the pleasure I desired but only succeed in making myself disagreeable. On a realistic view, what I achieve in this self-defence does not uplift but degrades even myself. I ought thus to be restrained even by the necessary protection of my own life. We have also to consider, however, the life of the assailan t. In the fact that he thinks he should attack me, whether in word only or more seriously, he shows that he for his part believes that he is in some serious need. He may be wrong so far as I am concerned. That is to say, he may have no good reasons for venting on me his ill-humour, sorrow, loneliness, disappointment or want, and especially for doing it in such a way that I am exposed to danger by his more or less serious attack. Yet I do not put myself in the right in relation to him by hitting back and therefore adding to the distress in which he thinks he finds himself. For all I know, the distress which has caused his highly irregular attack upon me may be much greater, or may weigh on him much more heavily, than that which he has inflicted on me by his attack. For all I know, my resistance, however justifiable, may increase his distress. I may thus provoke him to greater injustices, and thus plunge him into even greater distress, making things worse for him instead of better. By my defensive action, I shall certainly do something similar or even worse to him than he does to me by his act of aggression. The New Testament is surely right in treating both the attacked and the attacker on the same level as all blatant transgressors of the command, and in setting the attacker on the same level as the beggar or borrower, who in his own way is also an attacker but to whom the attacked is still under an obligation. It is surely closer to life than all the assertions of the right of self-defence so easily adduced as self-evident. Surely the more important thing is that we 103

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~ 55. Freedomfor Life should constantly ask ourselves whether it is really fitting to close the fatal cycle with an act of self-defence, or whether the need which is already at work in the attacker, and which he threatens to inflict, or has already inflicted, on the attacked, cannot be met along different lines from those of retaliation. Ought we not at least to postpone, to put in second place, all the considerations which might finally lead us to the resolve to meet force with force? If all this is true, and in any sensible discussion the command of God according to the Gospel will surely be taken into account, then it is obvious that the question of killing the attacker as the ultima ratioEN61 of what is called selfdefence can arise only on the extreme margin. Is it not a most serious matter if I not only meet invective with invective, or blow with blow, or an attack upon my possessions or those of others with a most powerful counter-attack, but reply to a threat on my own life or that of others by forestalling the attacker and putting him to death? Do I really prevent the danger to my life or that of others by killing the aggressor? And what do I do to him in making this final venture, in extinguishing his life with my own hand, in removing him "from the land of the living," as though he belonged to me and I were his judge?

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Schlatter's reasoning (ChristlicheEthik, 1914, 133) has a reassuring solidity: "Since he who seeks to destroy the life of another forfeits his own, he who kills the attacker in defence of life, whether his own or that of another, acts in the service of the justice of God as the executor of the punishment ordained by Him according to the same rule by which society would put the murderer to death if he were successful in carrYing out his will." On certain presuppositions this may well be true of a necessary and right action of this nature. But as a general and binding direction it is an astonishing over-simplication from the pen of a New Testament scholar like Schlatter.

Have we not first to maintain that the command of God does not initially point us in this direction, that it does not give us any authority over the life of the wrong-doer, that it does not make us his criminal judge? How can the voice of Christian ethics assert itself in this sphere if it does not dare, without establishing any absolute law, to make plain the true order of the enquiry in which self-defence and killing in self-defence cannot possibly be the first word but only the tenth at the very earliest? I certainly can and should wish to be protected in the possession and enjoyment of my goods, honour, freedom and finally and especially body and life, but not in all circumstances or with all means, since none of these possessions constitutes a supreme good with an absolute right to be maintained. The killing of the assailant is a final and most terrible means of protecting these possessions. Does their preservation really demand this? For in the last analysis, I cannot even know the need which drove him to snatch at my goods and therefore to attack me. And to defend myself I must range myself alongside him under the dubious slogan of self-protection, and finally under the even more dubious claim that it must be either he or I, under which he already stands as my assailant. Furthermore I have in fact to EN61

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kill the killer before he actually becomes a killer, so that he is only responsible for the will to do it whereas I must bear responsibility for the actual deed. If I do what is ultimately envisaged in cases of so-called self-defence, I must always give consideration to these restraining factors. We cannot be too circumspect when we move on to the exceptional case and discuss the self-defence which is not forbidden but commanded even though it involves the possibility of killing. How far we have strayed from the command of God and obedience to it is revealed by the fact that what ought to be obvious and self-evident according to the command, namely, the required renunciation of self-defence, has now come to be regarded as an unusual ethical achievement, whereas what can only be exceptional according to the command, namely, the required exercise of self-defence, has become the normal and natural thing which we think we can do at once should the need seem to arise. How are we to discuss this second point at all without drifting with the current, without howling with the wolves, without justifying that which man is only too ready to do blindly to the dishonour of God and the detriment of himself and his neighbour? Would it not be better to remain silent on this aspect, to concentrate on the evangelical call not to repay evil with evil, to allow this to hold the floor in all its majesty and severity against human obduracy and stupidity, against the whole flood of disasters which we constantly bring on ourselves or others by more crude or subtle self-defence? Our doubts in this respect are supported by the fact that we find so little explicit support in the New Testament for taking up this second point. There is indeed a legitimate aVTLaTijvaL EN62 against sin (Heb. 124), against demonic principalities and powers (Eph. 613), and against the devil (1 Pt. s9;ja. 47). Can we and should we conclude that this resistance implies resistance to specific men? No evidence for such a conclusion is to be found in the New Testament. Only once is the term used of one man opposing another, namely, in the account of the clash between Paul and Peter at Antioch: "I withstood him to the face" (Gal. 211). and in this case it is only in a very far-fetched way that we might speak of self-defence. The only instance of attempted self-defence is when the self-willed Peter draws and uses his sword in Gethsemane (Mt. 265lf.), but he is promptly rebuked by jesus. On the other hand, the story of the cleansing of the temple (Mk. 1115[. and par.), in which jesus is said by john (215) to have used a scourge of small cords, presents us with a unique picture of actual aggression on the part of jesus Himself, but not with an example of self-defence.

Nevertheless, to stop at this point is to suppress something which must not be suppressed in this connexion. The command of respect for human life in the New Testament form in which it restrains us so eloquently, both by what is said and by what is not said, from the natural reaction, is not a law but a direction for service. Hence its wording should not be allowed to obscure the Commander, the living Creator, the Giver and Master of life, in whose service man is placed. On the contrary, it must be permitted to summon us to be intelligent, willing and ready for the execution of His commands. EN62

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S 55. Freedom for Life Tolstoy, Gandhi and others who share their understanding of this direction for service are certainly right in wishing it to be accepted and taken more seriously in its literal form than has usually been the case even in Christian circles which are supposed to be loyal to the Bible. But they are wrong in understanding it as a law rather than a direction for service, and in thus refusing to leave room for the living God to give man direct instructions as well, in the same sense and with the same intention as the direction, but not necessarily in the precise verbal form. To be sure, one can know the spirit of God's command only from the scriptural letter. Hence in matters of the order and direction of what God wills or does not will as regards self-defence we should undoubtedly keep to what we are shown in the New Testament. Nevertheless, we are not to apply the letter in such a way as to stifle the spirit, but rather in order that we may seek from it the Spirit who is the freely commanding Spirit of the Lord. It is as we do this that the exception arises (cf. for what follows N. H. S0e, Christliche Ethik, 1949,213 and 474 f.).

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This cannot mean that somewhere and somehow, preferably with an appeal to the Holy Spirit, the imperative reaction of self-defence and therefore the primitive instinct to protect our possessions is right after all. As forcefully as it can, the command of God tells us that this instinct is wrong and not right. What is at stake in the sanctification of man by the command is the most radical purification of this instinct, its transformation from arbitrariness, and therefore its obedience. When it is given free rein, the result is transgression, whatever the possessions involved or the limits observed. But there is a sanctification of this instinct. The first step is to prohibit the natural defence of ourselves and our possessions and of others too, to castigate it as a wilful and arbitrary enterprise, to dash it down at our feet, to make us "defenceless." How can we live by the grace of God, and serve Him, so long as we think we can and should defend ourselves, whether with reference to ourselves or others, so long as we will not comprehend that God fights and conquers on our behalf, so long as we are not prepared to renounce as superfluous and wrong all the resistance that we might be able to offer? The unrighteous, i.e., those who seek to be right of themselves, shall not inherit the kingdom of God. It is with this radical defencelessness of man before God, and especially before his neighbour, that obedience begins in this matter along the line of the direction for service given in the New Testament. But when we are so strictly disciplined, so thoroughly disarmed, and so clearly pointed to peace, we may receive from the Lord orders which lead us beyond this line. For we can be just as useful and serviceable to Him in the execution of such orders. It is certainly not the case that God has abandoned, or willed to abandon, the common life of man to the confusion which would inevitably result if under the pressure of various needs individuals could assault others without restraint and at their own impulse. If the divine command summons the righteous: "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men" (Rom. 1218), this is not a charter of liberty to the unrighteous. God Himself resists them. Nor does He do so merely by calling them to order through His command. He does not oppose their transgression merely by citing them before His eternal judgment. Even in this life, in the 106

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course of human history, He does not do it merely by arranging that they keep one another in check, or by the establishment of the state and its laws, lawcourts and other measures adopted and executed according to His will. On the contrary, it may well be that He commissions those who hear His command, who therefore accept the fact that it is He who resists and repays evil, and who are therefore not angry but give place to His wrath in terms of Ro. 1219, personally to withstand the disorderly. He Himself making them wise and strong and willing to oppose to them in word and deed, not their own human No, but His divine No. This can happen. God can will that a man should not allow his neighbour to be insulted, robbed, injured or even killed by a third party. He can command him, even at the cost of injuring the assailant, to rush to the assistance of the victim even before he is left lying by the wayside and needs a Good Samaritan to succour him. He can will that a man should show neighbourly love to the one who unjustly attacks himself or others in the form which he deserves, not giving him free rein but restraining him by energetic action and thus frustrating the evil which he intends, poor simpleton that he really is! He can will that in such a situation a man may rise up quite simply in honour and defence of the law and order which protects the community and oppose the one who is deliberately on the point of breaking it. He can summon him to avert the danger which threatens to break on all in the person of the assailant. He can even will-we intentionally put this last-that a man's own life should not be endangered, injured or snuffed out by the arbitrary attack of another, that he should not himselfbe robbed of his other goods, and that it should rest in his own hands to prevent this. He can order a man to defend himself. Hence, even iffrom different angles, man may do this because God demands it, so that it is not merely legitimate but imperative that he should do so, and he may do it with pure hands and a dear conscience. When God orders this, it does not mean that a man now plunges with the assailant into the sphere in which evil is met by evil and therefore new evil engendered. It does not mean that he now throws himself afresh into the jungle struggle for existence in which the reviler is met by reviling, the assailant by assault and the murderer by murder at the hands of his intended victim. The man who in this kind of situation is obedient in the sense described has left behind him the mere impulse of self-preservation, the mere instinct, emotion, interest and arbitrariness of primitive self-defence. He has passed through the judgment which the command implies in this respect. In all cases, even the ultimate one in which it is a question of his own person and possessions, the cause at issue will not be his own, but that of the divine resistance entrusted to him. It will not be a matter of his own conflict with the assailant, in which he tries to overpower and disarm him as an enemy, but of God's conflict with the disorder and disaster which devastate humanity and which have now found a representative in the assailant and must be repulsed in his person in an action which is to be performed in the genuine interest of, and a genuine love for, this troublesome fellow-man himself. He will not act, therefore, under the

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mere impulsion of his own need and in disregard of that of the attacker, but in the freedom given him by the fact that he stands in the service of the One who sees and wills to avert his own need no less than that of the attacker, and who will finally do so. This action under commission constitutes the exceptional case in this regard. It is evident that in the strict sense it explodes the assumed notion of self-defence. It exists only for those who have fully heard the command which in the first instance points in a very different direction, and who have thus allowed themselves to be completely deprived of the "right" of what is called self-defence. In this way alone do they enter the service of God. Only as those who have been made defenceless in this sense can they be commissioned to take up the cause of the resistance which God Himself offers to wickedness and wicked people. Only as they are liberated from the anxious assertion of their rights, or of what they think to be the rights of others, can they be free to offer resistance to their fellow-man, to the assailant, in the service of the righteousness of God, and therefore in the last resort for him and not against him. In theological ethics, a definition of self-defence must thus begin where the legal definition ends. The answer to the question who is entitled to make use of this "right" is that he alone may do so who is not only "entitled" but actually ordered to do this because he has heard the command of respect for life as the command of the living God and cannot therefore give free rein to the wickedness of his neighbour. From this elucidation or dissolution of the concept of self-defence in general, it is easy to deduce what must be said on the detailed problem of killing in self-defence. This may obviously be included in the commission which a man can have in the service of the divine resistance to evil; and when this is so it is necessary, and cannot be regarded as murder. On the other hand, reflection is clearly demanded on the sharp line of division between what a man might desire and do of himself in his anxiety, anger or ostensibly superior prudence, and what he is actually commanded to do by God. Is he or any other man really under an obligation from any of the standpoints mentioned, and therefore is he genuinely commanded, to kill an attacker in order to help his neighbour, to maintain law and order, to protect himself, and finally to serve the attacker? Is it ever true that God has commanded him to do this? We shall have to return to this basic question in connexion with capital punishment. But we may say already that, if there are arguments in favour of the necessity of this extreme form of defence against the criminal by the state, they lose much of their force when applied in the present context. It is one thing to say that the state as the divinely ordained force of law and order should go to this extreme; it is quite another to claim that the individual may also do so. Even on the outermost limits on which we now find ourselves, it is only on the extreme edge that we can accord this right to the individual. Finally, the detailed question may be asked whether this is permissible when it is not so much a matter of the required helping of others or the legjtimate 108

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protection of law and order as such, but of the commanded preservation of one's own life or other possessions. Is it really permissible in such a case? We certainly cannot rule out the possibility that a man might take the life of an attacker as the price of his own life or other possessions. But the man who really acts in obedience cannot evade the question whether he does not here reach and even cross the extreme limit of the exceptional or marginal case. When a choice has to be made between one's own life and that of another, ought not the latter to have the preference? Should not the victim of attack, even though he may do everything else that may be commanded and is possible, regard the actual killing of his assailant as forbidden? It is appropriate that we should now turn to the problem of capital punishment. This has it in common with killing in self-defence that it is the final and most drastic means of defence against a human assailant. But it differs in virtue of its distinctive twofold delegation. He who is attacked voluntarily or involuntarily transfers his right of defence or counter-attack to a collective body, in the first instance to society as the bearer and guarantor of the public order which it seeks to protect by its laws and courts of justice, but then, in respect of the decision whether counter-attack should be made in a given case, to the judges appointed by it, and finally, in respect of the execution of this decision, i.e., the actual killing of the assailant, back again to a single individual, the executioner. From the historical standpoint capital punishment absorbs and transforms the act of selfdefence and revenge formerly undertaken by the individual or his family. In the interests of general peace, but also of equity in individual cases, retribution is decided and executed by the society which embraces individuals and families, by the authority and power of its magistrates and officers. In Ex. 2112 and par., it is still held in relation to the commanded execution of the criminal that in the first instance this is a matter for the "avenger of blood" acting either individually or in the name of the family, whereas the national community and its organs enter in only when it is a matter of deciding whether to grant asylum to the hunted man ifhe has killed by accident, or not to grant it ifhe is a genuine murderer. A further step is taken when, in place of the individual, society as a whole feels that it is attacked by the criminal and is thus summoned to counter-attack, destruction by the avenger of blood being thus replaced by stoning, in which all the people of the land, i.e., all male members of the religious community, are ordered to participate (Lev. 202.). The next step is the judging of crimes which do not affect any particular individual but are aimed at society as such, at its constitution, laws and continued existence, so that society sees a direct threat to itself and must give itself wholeheartedly to self-defence. We remember Achan Uos. 725): "AndJoshua said. Why hast thou troubled us? the Lord shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones." We also remember that in the viewof Caiaphas Jesus deserved to be put to death for a similar reason: ''Ye do not consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not" Un. 1150). On the same assumption Stephen was stoned (Ac. 754f.) and the early Christians were both threatened and punished by death in the Roman Empire. For it was as a defensive act of the state against its enemies that capital punishment gained a new ascendance in imperial Rome. It is a symptom of the weakness or secularisation of the Church that not only did its victory under Constantine imply no change nor even restraint in this matter, but the increasing 109

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frequency and intensification of capital punishment could actually go hand in hand with the expansion of Christianity. The Church was a spectator. Nor was it merely a spectator when from the Ilnth century onwards execution came to be recognised as the temporal punishment for heretics. The rule: ecclesianon sitit sanguinemEN63, meant in practice, quite apart from the normal jurisdiction of all spiritual lords and therefore of the Pope as well, that when it came to the punishment of heretics the Church both decreed the capital sentence and also gave commission for its execution by the secular authorities. Nor did the Reformation bring either change or restraint in this matter. In explanation, we may adduce the remarkable appearance and increase in all parts of Europe from the 15th century onwards of what was perhaps organised proletarian crime. This is what made Luther so blunt and severe on this subject, not only as regards the Peasants' War, but in basic principle. At any rate, there can be no disputing that in the last two-thirds of the 16th century and the first of the 17th a climax was reached in Europe, not only in the number of death sentences, but also in the various forms of cruelty with which they were carried out. The death penalty was in fact used less in the barbaric Middle Ages than in these first decades of the modern era, when it was applied in every possible case, even in trivial offences relating to property, and when the sword, the gallows, the wheel and the stake became the most palpable instruments of the authority of the state. That this could take place under the very eyes and with the secret or public connivance of all Christian churches is one of the many phenomena which must be taken into account when we ask why the Gospel has been quietly discredited in the modern world. The impetus towards a basic challenging of capital punishment did not come from Christians, nor from such men asJohn Locke, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau nor even Kant, who all conceded its necessity, but from the enlightened Italian Cesare Beccaria (1764), whose protest led to rapidly mounting pressure for its restriction and then to a widening demand for its complete abolition as a Liberal postulate. What can we saywhen we consider that among German Protestant theologians of the 19th century not only the stolid Vilmar but even the sensitive R. Rothe and the otherwise radical D. F. Strauss were so definitely in favour of its widespread retention? Is it not remarkable that where its abolition has been carried it has always been in face of a more or less powerful Christian opposition, as, for example, in Switzerland, where it had to meet the resistance of the Catholic Conservative Party, which so intransigeantly refuses to agree to any legalisation of abortion? Is there any genuine reason for this? (On the historical aspects, cf. the article "Todesstrafe" by Richard Schmidt in PRE3, Vol. 19. In my view the best material discussion is to be found in the corresponding article by Max Grunhut in RGG2, Vol. 5.)

To grasp the problem, we must first give critical consideration to the involved delegation. We may begin by admitting that, if there is a right of selfdefence or counter-attack against an unjust attacker, then it is good and salutary that so far as possible its execution should be withdrawn from the control of the individual, that it should be transferred to a society standardised by constitution and law, and that the verdict and power of this society should represen t the individual victim in his case against the attacker. This does at least give relative security against individual arbitrariness and against the general anarchy of interminable vendetta which has given Corsica its unenviable reputation. We have also to concede, and indeed we should strongly maintain, that, when society acts for the individual in this way, it treats its own EN63

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constitution and law as an inviolable good which it is prepared to defend against all who would destroy it by their conduct. At the same time, we must emphasise at the very outset that this delegation increases rather than decreases the responsibility of the individual. For he too, perhaps as the direct victim, but certainly as a member of society, belongs to the group which represents him, defending both his and its own rights against the attacker. In relation to what society resolves and does in respect of the latter, or causes to be resolved and done through its organs, he cannot be a neutral spectator, but is actually, even if indirectly, implicated both in will and deed, bearing part of the responsibility. From this standpoint, then, the relation of delegation means that every individual who belongs to a lawfully constituted society has a share which he cannot delegate to others in the pronouncement and execution of a capital sentence and even in the fact that it is provided for and practised in this society. This must be emphasised because from another angle the relation of delegation carries with it a temptation for the individual to evade this responsibility. As society takes up his case with its forces of law and order, he can no longer act in person as prosecutor, judge and finally executioner. Indeed, he need not do so, for it is done by others. He will neither demand nor pronounce the death penalty. He cannot, then, be a Pharisee. The saying: 'Judge not, that ye be not judged," does not affect him. Especially is it his good fortune not to be the sinister figure in the whole matter, i.e., the man who finally has to carry out his duty as the commissioned executioner. Not his hands, but those of another, will be stained with blood. If we are to think responsibly in this matter, it is obvious that we must not allow sophisms to arise out of this relation of delegation. The individual must keep his eyes steadily fixed on those who in the name and by the order of the society to which he also belongs pronounce and execute the death sentence. We think responsibly only if we realise and accept the fact that it is we ourselves who do it all in the person of these others. Under the Old Testament order by which the community as such had to pronounce sentence and then to execute it in the form of common stoning, this could not be concealed from anyone. In contrast, it is remarkable how older Europe with its countless executions both perceived the problem on the one side and quickly covered it up on the other. To be sure, in the good old days the civic authorities did not scruple every few months and even more frequently to attend the spectacle of divine and human justice publicly manifested in the death sentence, not merely giving their approval in this horrible way,but even lauding and honouring the judges for the sentence and the republican or princely authorities for appointing such judges. The fact remains, however; that they excluded the executioner and his whole family from all civic honours and social intercourse, treating him as an infamous person. The man who finally did "it" had to be a nobody with whom one had no dealings. This is how man tries to quieten his conscience when he has taken part in a doubtful and necessarily disquietening action. III

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This should be enough to keep our consciences alert. We must now consider what are the points which must decide whether capital punishment is commanded or forbidden in the light of the "Thou shalt not kill." Our reference is to the ultimate penalty demanded in the name of law and order, carried out at the behest and with the power of the state constituted as the bearer and guarantor of this order, and therefore directly or indirectly willed and executed by everyone in the community. Can and should punishment be willed and executed in this form, as the killing of the law-breaker? In explanation and support of punishment generally there are three well-known theories usually championed to-day in a combination of anyone with the other two. According to the first theory, which is not only the oldest and most primitive but also the most obvious and impressive, the purpose of punishment is to protect society and the individuals united in it against the criminal and possible imitators of his action by effectively removing the former in some gentler or more drastic fashion, by thus preventing him from further wrongdoing, and at the same time by setting a dreadful example before the latter in order to teach them that such acts are not worth while. According to the second and more profound theory, punishment is meted out because the committed violation of the law objectively demands a retribution or expiation which must fall on the criminal himself, and this in such a way that he himself is more or less severely restricted in the enjoyment of his rights according to the measure in which he has offended against the rights of others or of society. Punishment is, as it were, a representation and proclamation in human and earthly terms of the retributive justice of God. According to the third theory, originated and first held in modern Europe and America, the criminal is punished in order to bring him to an acknowledgment of his error, and to incite him to future amendment, by drastically confronting him with the nature of what he has done in the form of what is now done to him. Punishment thus has a moral, pedagogic and even pastoral purpose. We may begin by considering the third theory. In relation to the other two, it has the advantage that punishment with this intention, though it may well include the safeguarding of society and objective retribution, is primarily and decisively meaningful for the offender himself. On this view, it is he who deserves the greatest interest. Nor can there be any denying that he does merit particular interest, and certainly much more than he was formerly granted. Mter all, it is he who has done wrong. It is he who constitutes the threat to the security of all others. It is he who is the offender against justice. It is he who is the wound in the body politic. What is to become of him when the state metes out justice to him? What can society desire in punishing him except to rescue him from the position of transgression and disorder as energetically as possible? In the death penalty, however, this urgent need is completely set aside. The death penalty obviously assumes the very different verdict that improve112

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ment, education and rehabilitation are out of the question for him, and therefore the proposition that the responsibility of others towards him is at an end. His punishment can no longer have any positive character for him. Among others who offend daily, this person has done something which is so evil as to make life with him intolerable. And since he fortunately has no power to remove us from the world, we remove him from the world. In default of any other possibility this must be the meaning and form of his punishment. It is immediately apparent how close we are brought to the situation of killing in self-defence by this underlying verdict in the death sentence. The sentence rests on an alleged knowledge of the insuperable wickedness of a certain person. It declares society to be inwardly powerless in relation to him. All that it can do is to confront him with outward superiority, to decide to put him to death and therefore to live on without him. Is it right to decide thus? May it legitimately show such lack of solidarity with him? Ought it to declare itself inwardly powerless towards him only the more recklessly to assert its outward superiority? Can it really pronounce the prior verdict that he is too wicked and therefore beyond hope? What does this imply? What decision is presumed? From this standpoint already the death penalty incontestably means that society arbitrarily renounces the obligation which it has towards the criminal too. And what if the most genuine step it can take toward its own security and objective retribution is not to give up hope of reclaiming him? What if the seriousness of the punishment which he deserves, not to speak of its probable success, must be orientated by the need to see the obligation towards him, to try to live with him, and therefore, so far as possible, to uphold and even uplift him even in his punishment? What right has society to let one of its members fall, to declare itself incapable of having further contact with him, and thus to maintain that it is justified in breaking off this contact once and for all and irrevocably?

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Against this, it must not be argued too lightly that the death penalty is an act of mercy to the criminal. In certain cases, this might well be so, and if the death penalty is commanded in exceptional circumstances it should be carried out in this sense. But this does not constitute any generaljustification. And in any case it h~s nothing whatever to do with the doubtful psychological assumption that the prospect of his approaching end summons the criminal to a last hour conversion. It is a dreadful thing when society thinks it can show mercy to one of its members only by depriving him of life. To be sure, he is not necessarily lost even without the earthly society from which he is expelled by the death penalty (thus T. Haering, Das christliche Leben, 1907,423). Nor is he denied the offer of grace, which is not simply limited to this earthly span (thus A. Schlatter, Chr. Ethik, 1914, 131). But what are we really doing when we commend a man to God and yet abandon him as hopeless from the human standpoint The goodness of God is still addressed to him, but the fact that others cannot cut him off from it surely does not excuse the unfaithfulness of which they are guilty in relation to him.

The second theory of punishment, much favoured by Christians who approve of the death penalty, is naturally quite right in the sense that all 113

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~ 55. Freedom for Life human punishment should be an earthly representation of the retributive justice of God both to the transgressor himself and to the rest of society. But the question remains whether the death penalty can really be a reflection of the divine retribution, of the expiation which God requires. Is not the capacity of the death penalty to represent and attest the divine justice threatened by the fact that between the certainty of the human verdict which underlies it and the infallibility of the divine judgment there must be taken into account the whole difference between the thoughts of the holy Creator and the opinions of the sinful creature? How can we expect a human capital sentence to reflect the majesty of the eternal decision of God merely because it possesses the terrible character of the ultimate and irrevocable ? Other sentences which are not ultimate can and may do this because with their refusal to speak the final word, though less severe, they plainly reveal the limitation of all human understanding and therefore the humility required of man in relation both to God and to the fellow-man who is to be punished. The death sentence is lacking in this humility, although it, too, is only a human verdict on the facts to be judged and the standards to be applied in this judgment, i.e., on the question whether this or that act is really worthy of death even though established indisputably. Schlatter (loc. cit.) has this statement: "Evilis stripped of all right by the fact that the state puts him to death. Its right to do this is bound up with the utter reprehensibility of evil," though Schlatter would like to see the application of this right limited to cases "where wickedness has destroyed the life of another." But where can this wickedness be established in such a way that the state can make use of its right and show the "utter reprehensibility" of evil, i.e., of evil intention and action, by stripping it of all its rights in the execution of the evil person? Are we not forced to shrink from this conclusion by the mere fact that the worst cases of wilful destruction of life are perhaps those which cannot be fathomed by a human court, so that the state can perhaps exercise its retributive justice only on those who are really murderers to a lesser degree? Surely this is not a representation of the retributive justice of God.

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More important however, because more central, is the further point that on the Christian view the retributive justice of God has already found full and final expression, the expiation demanded by Him for all human transgression has already been made, the death sentence imposed on human criminals has already been executed. God gave His only Son for this very purpose. In His death He exercised judgment according to His wonderful righteousness, and He did so once and for all for the sins of all men. Is not the result of this just judgment mercy and forgiveness for all? Who, then, is not included? Which category of particularly great sinners is exempted from the pardon effected on the basis of the death penalty carried out at Calvary? Now thatJesus Christ has been nailed to the cross for the sins of the world, how can we still use the thought of expiation to establish the death penalty? It might be demurred that the pagan or atheistic or at least agnostic world cannot realise this. To count on it, it must first hear and believe the Gospel, and it obviously shows little desire or capacity to do so. This may well be. But the fact remains that there 114

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seems to have been a reversal of roles in the matter. In spite of its unbelief, the unbelieving world seems generally to accept the fact that the death penalty can no longer be based on the thought of expiation, whereas the Church, from which one might really expect faith and therefore an understanding of the decision made at Golgotha, still speaks as if that stripping of evil of all its rights, and therefore the killing of certain wicked men, were commanded and necessary in confession of God's retributive justice. On which side is faith really to be found and on which unbelief, on which side the obedience corresponding to faith and on which the disobedience corresponding to unbelief, in confrontation with the message of the true divine judgment revealed in the Word of God? If what we are to attest in the sphere of human punishment is not a selfconceived, imaginary and lifeless justice, but the righteousness of the true God who has acted and revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, capital punishment will surely be the very last thing to enter our heads. If this righ teousness is what we are really to attest, the punishment of the criminal must take a form in which the forgiveness won for him inJesus Christ is revealed to him and to the less wicked by being concretely offered to the more wicked. His punishment should not shorten the allotted time which still remains to him but afford him the opportunity of filling it better than he has done in the past. It must restrain him from further lapses, but also stimulate him positively to take his place in orderly human society. He must not go unpunished, but be punished in such a way that his life is affirmed and not denied as in capital punishment. Only thus can his punishment be a human reflection of the righteous action of God in His conflict with chaos. Finally, the first theory, which is the simplest and most obvious, establishes the right of punishment on the necessity of defending the state and therefore all its members against arbitrary crime and disorder. Punishment is a safeguard and deterrent. And it may well appear, and has often been felt, that in face of certain kinds of crime only the surest safeguard and supreme deterrent is adequate, namely, capital punishment. It has even been said that in face of crime generally there would be no serious safeguard and deterrent if the penal system did not have this ultimate climax. Thus Schlatter writes again (lac. cit.): "A people will hardly maintain the conviction that evil should not be done and cannot be tolerated if it finds no place at all for the death sentence amongst its punishments."

Why should we not accept this position? Surely punishment is self-defence on the part of established society. And surely a first prerequisite is to render the criminal harmless. A point to-be considered at the very outset in this defence and explanation of punishment is that the criminal to be punished is an internal rather than an external enemy of society. He has become a criminal even as and although he belongs to it. He is a member of it. He is its child. In large part, indeed, he is its product, a result of the conditions obtaining in it. He has enjoyed the benefits 115

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of its order, but he has also suffered from its imperfections and contradictions, from the manifest or concealed injustice prevalent within it. We may well ask, therefore, whether society is justified in wanting to be rid of him in the most effective manner. Ought it not to have the magnanimity, and above all the humility, not to renounce its solidarity with him, but even in its punishment to act from within this solidarity? It has to realise that when it defends itself against him it is really defending itself against itself, namely, against its own system of justice to the extent that this is very largely a system of injustice. It has to realise that in wanting to render the criminal harmless it is constantly summoned to render itself more harmless than it obviously is. From the standpoint of the self-defence of society more cannot be said at root than that capital punishment is an infallibly effective means of preventing the criminal from continuing or repeating his outrages and thus of rendering him completely harmless. But surely society is very frightened of this individual if it thinks it must take the infallible precaution of putting him to death. Could it not achieve its end by a less radical means? May it not be that this infallibly effective measure has the terrible disadvantage of committing it in a. way which actually spells far greater danger to its justice, property and stability than even the continued existence of this individual, questionable though this may be in some sense. For is it not the case that, when organised society puts to death one of its members, it entangles itself in several serious selfcontradictions? It belongs to its nature as an orderly society that its measures can have only a provisional, relative and limited character, that they must always be in a position to be transcended and corrected. But in punishing by death it does something unlimited, irrevocable and irreparable. Again, it belongs to its nature as an orderly society that its actions must be designed to secure and maintain the life of its people. But to punish by death is to destroy life. Again, it belongs to its nature as an orderly society that it should affirm and protect the right of all its members along with its own right. But when it punishes by death, it does not merely limit the right of a culpable member, which is the essence of all punishment, but it takes away this right altogether. What, then, becomes of self-defence from all these various angles? Punishing by death, it attacks the very thing which it prefers to defend. It renounces its very being as an orderly society. It returns to the level of anarchical selfdefence. But all this means that it throws far more serious doubt upon its own position than it could ever do by allowing the criminal to live and rendering him innocuous in some other way. In so doing, however, it also compromises its other goal from the standpoint of its own security, namely, the deterring of others from imitating the criminal. Punishment ought certainly to have this deterrent effect. But in capital punishment the state leaves the human level and acts with usurped divinity. It destroys life instead of maintaining it. It deprives of right instead of upholding it. And therefore capital punishment cannot have this effect. 116

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In fact, it has never had it. Conversely, its abolition has never resulted in the dreaded increase in the number of hitherto capital offenders. The effective fear of punishment implies "conviction of the inescapability of criminal prosecution" as such (Griinhut). This conviction society cannot spread too forcefully among its people. But fear of capital punishment can instil into the potential criminal only the unwelcome conviction that in society he is finally dealing with a wild and very dangerous beast which he must approach with the greatest care but against which its own example teaches him to make use of every possible means. It must also be said in conclusion that, from this standpoint of the self-defence of society, capital punishment is not really helped by making its execution normally dependent upon the supervision and final decision of a court of mercy, whether in the form of an ultimate body or a supreme minister of the state in question, which is independent of the ordinary judicature. Such a practice may be welcomed as an expression of the obviously uneasy public conscience in this matter. But it may also be regarded as a final attempt to stifle this conscience. If it is right to send a person from life to death on the authority of the state, what further place is there for mercy, especially, be it noted, when this mercy is not freely given, but granted or withheld according to the non-expert findings and decision of a higher, nonlegal authority inevitably swayed by sentimental considerations? In point of fact, many a condemned man has been saved in this way, and society has thus been preserved from perpetrating the violation of law which his execution would have involved. Again, this type of pardon has sometimes prevented a "legal murder," i.e., the execution of a condemned person whose innocence has subsequently been established. Where capital punishment is still practised, a case can be made out for the institution of such a body, and it should be advised to exercise mercy in all cases. But this loophole does not provide the honest and radical solution to the problem which is to be found only in the legal abolition of the death sentence.

If the command to protect life is accepted and asserted in some sense in a national community, then it is impossible to maintain capital punishment as an element in its normal and continuing order. It is an astonishing and disturbing fact that for nineteen hundred years there has been a Christian Church, and for four hundred a Protestant, which has not only failed to champion this insight but has continually opposed it. And it is one of the disconcerting blessings of the divine overruling of history that nevertheless it has been very widely accepted, being adopted far more readily and energetically by the children of the world than by the children of light. But the dreadful abuse of capital punishment which has become rampant again during the last decades in the very heart of Europe, and in a form far exceeding the atrocities of the 16th and 17th centuries, is a clear indication that even the children of the world have not renounced this weapon quite so completely as might have appeared at the height of the 19th century. It is not too late, therefore, for the Christian Church to espouse this renunciation on a worldwide scale. It had every reason to do so from the very first on the basis of its central message, and ifit is really true that Liberal opposition to the death sentence was too superficial to be finally adequate and effective, there is no reason why the Church should continue to hide its light under a bushel in this respect. For from the 117

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point of view of the Gospel there is nothing to be said for its institution, and everything against it. Ifwe now turn our attention again to the exceptional case, there can be no question of an institution, namely, an established practice within a national community existing in normal internal and external conditions. On the basis of the command, capital punishment must always be rejected and opposed as the legally established institution of a stable and peaceful state. Nevertheless, this does not mean that it is absolutely excluded and forbidden by the command in all forms and circumstances. It cannot be denied, of course, that the central message of the New Testament forces it, like so many other possibilities, out to the extreme margin of acts which are permissible in obedience. Thus everything points to the fact that it can have no place in the ordinary life of the state. On the other hand, it is equally incontestable that the New Testament also presupposes and reckons with the fact that, according to the will of God, it may sometimes become necessary and have to be carried out in connexion with the life of the state. When and where is this permissible? In contrast with the older ecclesiastical view,we can no longer think in terms of a permanent institution of the state. In the exceptional case under review, there can be no question of regarding the death sentence as the broad or even the narrow apex of a regular penal system. But at some point it still seems to occupy in the life of the state a place which can be contested only by an illegitimate ethical absolutism. We have seen that there is no place for the taking of a "worthless life." But on the far edge of what can be commanded, there is certainly a place for the killing of those whose existence threatens the state and its stability in such a way that a choice has to be made between their existence and that of the state. When it is seen that this situation exists, it may be the will and command of God that they should be killed. The weak and the sick are not enemies of the state, but there may be others whom the state has no option but to treat as enemies. What must be at stake in these cases is not the state in its stable and peaceful form, but the state convulsed and attacked and therefore in serious difficulties. It must be a question of absolute emergency when not just the bene esseEN64 but the very esseEN65 of the state and its members is at issue, when "to be or not to be" is the question which it faces. In such a case, since the political order as such rests on the will of God, the struggle for its concrete stability, like the resistance of the individual against attack, may well be the command of God, and in the course of this struggle it may well be required to apply the ultima ratioEN66 against those who endanger its stability. We cannot emphasise too strongly that the exception arises only when the state exists in the abnormal situation in which God demands it from one or more of its responsible leaders for its preservation in extremisEN67• Thus there EN64 EN65 EN66 EN67

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can be no question of capital punishment as a regular institution, for this will be a time of decisions and actions rather than rules, so that at most the institution can be set up only for this critical and exceptional situation and will not apply in normal conditions. The extreme and extraordinary character of the death penalty in such a situation will be seen in the fact that extraordinary organs of authority will necessarily emerge and function. In response to the critical conditions, special men with special responsibilities will have to be summoned to the special service of the whole, and to decide and act accordingly. And the extraordinary nature of the situation will be particularly disclosed in the fact that those who are ready and determined to kill must be quite conscious that in so doing they are venturing something which in normal conditions would be forbidden on any conception of the nature of punishment. For behind their use of the death penalty there must stand: (1) a recognition, which is not immediately apparent, that it is better for one person to die, and thus to be rendered harmless and to serve as a deterrent to the rest, than that the whole nation should perish; (2) a recognition, which is basically possible only from the ultimate depths of the Christian faith, that it is the will of the gracious God in relation to this man that he should be made a companion of the thieves who were crucified with Jesus, they as ajust reward for their deeds, but He having done nothing amiss and in expiation of their sin; and (3) a dreadful recognition that causing him to die is the only mercy which can be shown to this man. This extraordinary action cannot be undertaken responsibly before God and man, and ~specially before the victim, except with this extraordinary threefold recognition. This shows us yet again, and even more sharply, that capital punishment cannot possibly be a regular institution. For by its very nature this kind of recognition cannot possibly belong to the everyday life of the state, but only to the last hours which may strike on dark days in the life of a nation. Yet when these dark days come, when these last hours strike, when this extraordinary recognition irresistibly forces itself upon special men with special responsibilities, it may well be that they must kill according to the command of God and in the service of the whole, and that they should therefore do so. We may mention two such critical situations in which the exception arises in this sense. The first is that of high treason in case of war. Switzerland abolished the death penalty in its new and general penal code. But for this offence it has retained it in its martial code, and when the forces were mobilised during the last war it was put into effect some twenty times, always after an unsuccessful petition for mercy to the Federal Council. To my mind this distinction is fundamentally correct even from the ethical standpoint, i.e., in the light of the divine command. If a man surrenders military secrets to an actual or potential enemy and thus violates his military oath and endangers his own country, the existence of the state, and the lives of possibly thousands of his comrades, he may be said to have forfeited his right to live in this community and therefore to be rightly subject to death, assuming that the gravity of his action has been scrupulously weighed and proved. The doubtful nature of war as such, to which we shall return later, is no argument against this conclusion, since the traitor to his country acts in the service of war and not of peace, he does so in opposition to his own 119

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nation and its members when they are involved in war, and he is thus their deliberate enemy. In other words, he takes the risk of fighting on the opposite side, and he must accept the consequences. In itself, the risk is no greater than that of faithfulness to duty, which in war amounts to risking one's life. Indeed, it would be unfair to those who are faithful to reduce the risk in the case of the traitor, and not to keep him to the fact that he has gambled his life against that of his country and state, and must now forfeit it. His life is still in the hands of God, but now that this verdict must be ventured against him it is so no longer as his temporal life among those whom he has betrayed. Faith remains-and it will be the minister's task to tell him explicitly before his death that jesus Christ died for his sins too, but now concretely in the wayin which He did so for the sins of the thieves crucified with Him. The rest owe him mercy too, but, now that this terrible recognition has become inescapable, only in the form of the stern mercy which consists in his extinction. We can and must say the sharpest possible things about the relation between killing and murder in war, and therefore against war. But we cannot argue that war is the ultima ratioEN68 of the external self-defence of the state without seriously considering the necessity of this exceptional case of capital punishment. The second critical situation is one which in the Middle Ages and early in the modern epoch was often given more or less careful consideration under the rather sensational title of tyrannicide. The life of a national community may be threatened from within as well as from without, particularly by an evil individual thrust or thrusting himself into the limelight under the pretence and pretext of being an instrument of lawful government. This man may perhaps have climbed to the top and gained control over the means of power in the state illegitimately, or he may have done so legitimately, only to make illegitimate, corrupt and perhaps even criminal use of these means. And his action is calculated not only to curtail and suppress the rights of many or perhaps even all the subjects of the state-which might in itself be tolerable and is not the real point at issue-but to do possibly irreparable harm to the state as a whole and all its members. Now let us suppose that there are no constitutional or legal means to put an end to his evil work, or to remove him from a position in which he has now become a universal danger. Let us suppose that all power is now tyrannically concentrated in the hands of this one man, and he perpetually causes might to triumph over right. Let us suppose that the next highest or nearest responsible authorities which can and should take the initiative in restoring law and order as now broken at the highest level are unable and unwilling to do so. May not someone from the lower ranks of the political hierarchy, or even from outside it, take up the obviously abandoned cause of the state on his own responsibility for the salvation of the whole, and, since all other waysare barred, proceed at the risk of his own life to the elimination, i.e., the killing of this publicly dangerous person? Is this really murder, or is it an act of loyalty commanded in extremisEN69, and therefore not murder? Might it not be that on occasion certain men not only may but must undertake it? When we put the question in this way,we are not dealing with a purely hypothetical case. We can leave aside such instances as those ofjael,judith, Brutus and William Tell. For in our own time the same question was faced between the years 1938 and 1944 not merely by a few but by very many seriously minded and even Christian Germans in relation to Adolf Hitler, and in theory a positive answer was quite definitely given. The Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer belonged to these circles. He was really a pacifist on the basis of his understanding of the Gospel. But the fact remains that he did not give a negative answer to this question. The diplomat Erich Kordt (Nicht aus den Ahten ... , 1950) has described how unanimous these men were in November, 1939, that the Western offensive planned by Hitler, and the EN68 EN69

limit case in extreme cases

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consequent violation of Dutch and Belgian neutrality, would be the beginning of the end for Germany, and must therefore be prevented at all costs, though as things were it could be averted only by the physical annihilation of that fatefully resolute and powerful man. An assassination was desired and even planned, and at the time there was no lack either of the opportunity or the means to carry it out. According to the candid explanation of Kordt, the failure of the attempt was certainly not due to any religious or moral shrinking from the so-called act of tyrannicide. Encouragement was found in the dictum of Thomas Aquinas: Quando non est recursus ad superiorem ... tunc enim qui ad liberationem patriae tyrannum

occidit,

laudaturEN7o. There was no theoretical doubt that this was a case for the ultima ratioEN71 and

must be treated as such. The plan miscarried simply because no one was prepared to go through with it in absolute disregard of his own life. When it was already too late, the attempt actually made by Count Claus von Stauffenberg on July 20, 1944, was bound to fail for the same reason. We do not blame these men for what Kordt calls their (and his own) "inadequacy." The only lesson to be learned is that they had no clear and categorical command from God to do it. Otherwise they would have had to overcome what was not in any case an ethical difficulty. Nor can we seriously blame these men for seriously considering and even deciding upon assassination. In such a situation it might well have been the command of God. For all we know, perhaps it was, and they failed to hear it. This might well have been the obedience commanded ad liberationem patriae tyrannum occidereEN72. Calvin, Theodore Beza andJohn Knox, while they did not allow tyrannicide as a general possibility or raise it to the level of a legal institution as popularly supposed, also pointed to extreme public emergencies in which it might happen that God would raise up an avenger and deliverer whose destructive work would not be murder but would be done in obedience to His command. If Lutherans find this questionable, let them consider what Luther himself suggested-he had not yet clearly formulated his later doctrine cf the two kingdoms-at the time of his first anger against Rome and all RomanistaeEN73 (in his epilogue to a pamphlet of Sylvester Prieras, 1520, WA., 6, 347, 17 f.) as a possible way to meet emergencies even in the Church: "Thieves, robbers and heretics must be destroyed "-cur non magis hos magistros perditionis ... omnibus armis impetimus et manus nostras in sanguine istorum lavamus muni et omnium periculosissimo incendio nos nostrosque liberaturi?EN74

tan quam a com-

Attention has still to be called to the very grievous inner distress into which a man is necessarily plunged if he feels that he is called to act in this way.Those who do not find it difficult to decide on this action are well advised to refrain from it. It is not merely a question whether they will have any future. This is settled easily enough. It is a matter of the pure heart and clean hands and untroubled conscience without which no one should commit himself to this course. For there can be no appeal to an institution set up and to be put.into effect in this type of emergency. There is no office to give formal authorisation. There will not even be spiritually competent friends to advise, nor a minister able to pronounce a theological opinion. The man who takes this course is completely alone in his concern and responsibility for the state, and above all in his concern for the man whose life he must take, in the faith in which he must think of him and for him, in the intercession for him which he

EN70

EN71 EN72 EN73 EN74

When there is no recourse to a superior ... then the one who kills a tyrant to liberate the nation deserves praise limit case to kill a tyrant to liberate the nation Romanists whyis it not all the more true ... that we should assailthese masters of damnation with every weapon and wash our hands in their blood, until both ourselves and our property are freed from this universal and most dangerous of all conflagrations 121

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~ 55. Freedom for Life can as little afford to omit as intercession for his own salvation, which is so genuinely threatened in this situation. He is alone with his reading of the position, alone with his judgment, alone with his conscience and therefore with his hearing and doing of the command of God, and finally alone with his act. The whole burden of this situation must be considered if we are prepared to take this exception into account. This does not mean, however, that we can contest its existence, i.e., the fact that this strange form of capital punishment might be the command of God. Nor does it mean that we can dispute the fact that, when it is recognised to be the command of God, it must be performed resolutely in that almost oppressive solitude, yet in reality within the communio sanctorumEN75•

We conclude our discussion of the sixth commandment by turning to the problem of war. In older Christian ethics the question of the private duel was usually considered in this connexion. Indeed, in relation to the practice as it still obtained in certain officer and student circles, it still called for brief attention from moral philosophers even at the beginning of the present century. But it is no longer a problem. Mter the shedding of so much blood, it has now come to be tacitly accepted as so much veritable nonsense, and, unless appearances are deceptive, it is now obsolete. If only we had made the same progress in respect of war! But this is something which we must consider more seriously than ever as a question of both practical and theoretical urgency.

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It was in 1795 that Immanuel Kant wrote his treatise Vom ewigen Frieden. Then in 1815 the Congress of Vienna proclaimed the Holy Alliance with its guarantee of at least temporary peace for Europe. After the wars of 1866 and 1870 Bertha von Suttner wrote her moving book Die Waffen nieder. In the summer of 1914 in Basel Minster the Socialists of all countries solemnly assured themselves and the world that they were prepared to resist effectively the outbreak of any new war. In the years after 1918 there echoed through a horrified Europe the cry that there must be no more war. In 1930 there appeared the book of the Dutch theologian G. J. Heering, Der Sundenfall des Christentums, in which we read (p. 178 f.) that modern Christian humanitarianism, in contrast to the rude and chaotic Middle Ages and the following centuries, is on the verge of a new upward trend; there already exists to-day a public opinion, a "world ethos" (R. Qtto), a general protest against war as such, which has only to be made vocal and effective. And in the preface to the German edition of this book we read from the pen of Martin Rade: "War can have no more place in Christian ethics. Anything said in defence or justification of it is only the rearguard action of a defeated army." And even in 1938, after the Peace of Munich, did there not go up the rather meeker but no less consoling cry: "Peace in our time"? But what has happened between and after all these dates and their hopes and promises? And since to-day we are no longer in a practical position to look back on war as we can on duelling, the question is by no means exhausted even theoretically, but more than ever claims our attention.

In this case, too, we shall begin by trying to stab our consciences awake in relation to certain illusions which may have been feasible once but cannot be entertained any longer. 1. There was a time when it was possible not only for monks and ecclesiastics but also for very wide circles of secular society to throw the problem of military EN75

communion

of saints

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action wholly on the so-called military classes. The very word "soldier," with its suggestion of a being apart, has its origin in this period. War was a matter for princes and rulers and their relatively small armies. It did not concern others unless they were accidentally involved. In favour of the military classes, often regarded with some suspicion rather like the hangman, Luther wrote his well-known tract (1526) to show that they, too, live in a state of grace, and that their activity can and should take place in both faith and love, in obedience to the command of God. We still find something of the earlier conception in Goethe, who, wrapped up in the problems of his theory of colours, lived tranquilly through the not too terrible cannonade of Valmy and the French Campaign as a whole, maintaining his calm if slightly annoyed detachment in relation to the events of the following decades right up to and including the War of Liberation.

Those days have gone. To-day everyone is a military person, either directly or indirectly. That is to say, everyone participates in the suffering and action which war demands. All nations as such, and all their members, have long since become responsible military subjects. It would be ridiculous to-day to throw the responsibility on the collective body, i.e., the fatherland which calls, the people which rallies, and the state which orders. Each individual is himself the fatherland, the people, the state; each individual is himself a belligerent. Hence each individual must act when war is waged, and each has to ask whether the war isjust or unjust. This is the first thing which to-day makes the problem of war so serious from the ethical standpoint. It is an illusion to think that there can be an uncommitted spectator. 2. It has always been realised that war is concerned with the acquisition and protection of material interests, more specifically the possession of land and property. In times past, however, it was easier to lose sight of the material aspect in all kinds of notions about the honour,justice, freedom and greatness of the nation as represented in its princely houses and rulers, or about the supreme human values at stake, so that something of the character of a crusade, ofa religious or cultural war, could be conferred upon the conflict, when in reality the decisive if not the exclusive point was simply the deployment of power for the acquisition of power in the elemental sense. Political mysticism, of course, is still to be found; but it is now much more difficult to believe in it sincerely. Certain fog patches have lifted. Even though we may constantly forget it, we have no good reason not to recognise that modern war, especially between great nations and national groups, is primarily and basically a struggle for coal, potash, ore, oil and rubber, for markets and communications, for more stable frontiers and spheres of influence as bases from which to deploy power for the acquisition of more power, more particularly of an economic kind. To those who have eyes to see, it is especially evident to-day that there exists a world-wide armaments industry which has many ramifications, which is initiated and spurred on by modern technical science, which is alwaysforging ahead on its own account, which is closely linked with many other branches of industry, technical science and commerce, and which imperiously demands that war should break out from time to time to use up existing stocks and create the demand for new ones. 123

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This means, however, that in a way very different from previous generations we can and should realise that the real issue in war, and an effective impulse towards it, is much less man himself and his vital needs than the economic power which in war is shown not so much to be possessed by man as to possess him, and this to his ruin, since instead of helping him to live and let live it forces him to kill and be killed. War reveals the basically chaotic character of the so-called peaceful will, efforts and achievements of man. It exposes his radical inability to be master without becoming not merely a slave but his own destroyer, and therefore fundamentally a suicide. It discloses the flagrant incapacity of man and the judgment which he is always on the point of bringing on himself even in peacetime. This means that in reality it is only superficially that the question of war differs from that of peace, i.e., from the question what we will and do, on what our life is fixed and how we order it, before war comes again with its killing and being killed. Do we possess the power to live, or does it possess us? So long as it possesses us, war will always be inevitable. Si vis pacem, para bellum EN76, says the old Roman proverb. But a wiser version would be: si non vis bellum, para pacemEN77• We should see to it that peace is better organised. But if we want something like war even in peacetime, how can we prepare for peace? How can we do anything but mobilise for war? How can it be otherwise than that war should break out and be fought? This is the unvarnished truth from which we can no longer escape so easily to-day as previously. 3. It has always been realised that the main goal in war is to neutralise the forces of the enemy. But it has not always been seen so clearly as one might desire that this goal demands not merely the most skilful and courageous dedication and possible forfeiture of one's own life but also quite nakedly and brutally the killing of as many as possible of the men who make up the opposing forces. In former days this was concealed by the fact that the individual confronted an individual opponent and could thus think of himself as in an unavoidable position of self-defence in which it was his duty and right to kill. To-day it is even better concealed by the fact that as a result of recent technical development the individual to a very large extent cannot even see his individual opponents as such. The way in which this problem was handled at the peak of the transition from the old technique of war to the new, when hopes could even be held out for the humanisation of war, may be seen from no less a person than the great Schleiermacher, who in his Christliche Sitte (p. 281 f.) advances the following line of argument. Wars are fought in order to weaken the enemy to such a degree that if he is sensible he has no option but to Yield to what is demanded. But this process of weakening ought not to take place in such a way that his subjects are killed. Schleiemnacher, who was also an opponent of the death sentence, dismissed as barbaric and immoral such warfare as had killing as its aim. The goal of war as he saw it is to possess that which constitutes the power of the enemy, i.e., his land and people. If

EN76 EN77

If you want peace, prepare for war. if you do not want war, prepare for peace

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enemies are killed in war, this is not because of any deliberate will to kill them, nor because they are put in a dangerous position. It is simply because they offer arbitary resistance. "In former days things were quite different; but there can be no doubt which way of waging war is the more moral, the old or the new. No doubt a certain personal bravery developed at the time when men still fought only with swords and spears. But since this led more easily to mortal combat than modern artillery, which simply aims to cause the enemy to retreat before the deployment of a mass of natural force, modern warfare is in this sense far nobler. The only non-Christian feature is the use of outposts and snipers aiming at the destruction of the individual, but this is also the least effective element."

To-day, however, the increasing scientific objectivity of military killing, the development, appalling effectiveness and dreadful nature of the methods, instruments and machines employed, and the extension of the conflict to the civilian population, have made it quite clear that war does in fact mean no more and no less than killing, with neither glory, dignity nor chivalry, with neither restraint nor consideration in any respect. The glory of the so-called military profession, which has incidentally become the profession of everybody either directly or indirectly, can now feed only on the relics of ancient illusions long since stripped of their substance. Much is already gained if only we do at last soberly admit that, whatever may be the purpose or possible justice of a war, it now means that, without disguise or shame, not only individuals or even armies, but whole nations as such, are out to destroy one another by every possible means. It only needed the atom and hydrogen bomb to complete the self-disclosure of war in this regard. These are all questions of perception to which we must give honest answers before we are qualified to pronounce judgment on the question of the rights and wrongs of war. It is perhaps a hopeful feature from the standpoint of Christian ethics that after two world wars-and who can tell whether they are the first or the last?-we to-day, unlike previous generations, are not merely qualified but compelled and certainly summoned to face the reality of war without any optimistic illusions. How unequivocally ugly war now is! In view of these questions we do well to make it clear praenumerandoEN78 that if there can be any question of a just war, if we can describe this undertaking and participation in it as commanded, then it can only be with the same, and indeed with even stricter reserve and caution than have been found to be necessary in relation to such things as suicide, abortion, capital punishment etc. War is to be set in this category, nor is there any point in concealing the fact that the soldier, i.e., the fighting civilian, stands in direct proximity to the executioner. At any rate, it is only in this extreme zone, and in conjunction with other human acts which come dangerously near to murder, that military action can in certain instances be regarded as approved and commanded rather than prohibited. We must also add that in this particular case the question is indeed to be put far more strictly than in relation to the other possibilities. For (1) war is an EN78

in advance

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action in which the nation and all its members are actually engaged in killing, or in the direct or indirect preparation and promotion of killing. All are involved in this action either as those who desire or as those who permit it, and in any case as those who contribute to it in some sector. All are directly responsible in respect of the question whether it is commanded killing or forbidden murder. Again, however, killing in war is (2) a killing of those who for the individuals fighting in the service of the nation can be enemies only in the sense that they for their part have to wage war in the service of their country. The fact that the latter fight with approval on the other side can only make them appear guilty and criminal from this side. But whether the participants are guilty and criminal, and as such about to kill and therefore to murder, is a question which they also from their side might put to those who fight with approval on this side. Finally, killing in war (3), unlike the other possibilities already discussed, calls in question, not merely for individuals but for millions of men, the whole of morality, or better, obedience to the command of God in all its dimensions. Does not war demand that almost everything that God has forbidden be done on a broad front? To kill effectively, and in connexion therewith, must not those who wage war steal, rob, commit arson, lie, deceive, slander, and unfortunately to a large extent fornicate, not to speak of the almost inevitable repression of all the finer and weightier forms of obedience? And how can they believe and pray when at the climax of this whole world of dubious action it is a brutal matter of killing? It may be true that even in war many a man may save many things, and indeed that an inner strength may become for him a more strong and genuine because a more tested possession. But it is certainly not true that people become better in war. The fact is that war is for most people a trial for which they are no match, and from the consequences of which they can never recover. Since all this is incontestable, can it and should it nevertheless be defended and ventured? All affirmative answers to this question are wrong from the very outset, and in Christian ethics constitute a flat betrayal of the Gospel, if they ignore the whole risk and venture of this Nevertheless, and do not rest on an exact calculation of what is here at stake and whether we can and must nevertheless reply in the affirmative. We can also put it in this way.All affirmative answers to the question are wrong if they do not start with the assumption that the inflexible negative of pacifism has almost infinite arguments in its favour and is almost overpoweringly strong. Or again, we might put it thus. All affirmative answers to the question are wrong if they do not incorporate a recognition that even in extremisEN79 it is far more difficult to express even a qualified affirmative at this point than when we stand on the outer margin in such matters as suicide, abortion, self-defence etc. Unless we are prepared to rush into sweeping judgments, we shall probably refuse to agree with J. G. Heering that the positive attitude towards war of the traditional Roman EN79

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Catholic and Protestant churches and their ethics is to be described as "the fall of Christianity." If there is a fall of Chriitianity, then this is to be sought at a deeper level, and theologically we shall find it in the degeneration of ecclesiastical eschatology and the resultant overestimation and misinterpretation of the events and laws of the present world. These deeper causes have had, and still have, different and to some extent far more fateful consequences than the particular perversion in question. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that at this point we are indeed confronted by a particular Christian perversion which is to-day becoming more and more unbearable. There is indeed a strange difference between the position adopted by the Christian world during the first centuries and that which followed in the centuries after Constantine. In the earlier period there was a fairly general aversion on the part of the community, tacit but for that reason all the more self-evident, towards the whole world of war and warring. Indeed, in Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian and Lactanctius we even find explicit declarations that the militia ChristiEN80 is incompatible with active participation in carnal warfare. In addition, there were some who were actually martyred for what we now call conscientious objection. But then opinion veered round to a no less self-evident affirmation of what had previously been thought impossible. When the first great Western synod met at ArIes in 314 A.D. in the presence of the Emperor Constantine, it was still laid down in the old style (can. 4 f.)-a real straining at gnats and swallowing of camels-that charioteers and actors must abandon their careers to become Church members, but the severest ecclesiastical penalty of excommunication was imposed (can. 3) for refusal to do military service. The required theological arguments for ajust war were then drawn up by Athanasius, Ambrose and especially Augustine, who lived at the time of the Germanic invasions. Among these the saYingofJohn the Baptist to soldiers, and the existence of various pious centurions in the New Testament, already began to play the part which they have continued to play in every theological defence of war right up to our own time. We may well ask whether the position of the earlier period did in fact do justice to the depth of the New Testament understanding of life. Indeed, it would be difficult to contest the fact that there were Christian soldiers even in the 2nd century. Yetwe can hardly dispute the patent truth that the elasticity with which the Church has countenanced war and war fever from the days of Constantine, while insisting on the non-military status of priests and monks, does far less justice to the New Testament understanding of life. There can be no objection to a general reckoning with war and Christian participation in it. Like the Christian recognition of the state, this is inevitable in any honest appraisal of what it means for the community to await its coming Lord amid the realities and laws of this passing aeon. The objection is that these realities and laws have come to be rated more highly than the passing of this world and the coming of the Lord. The criterion has thus been lost without the application of which there can be no controlling Christian will and action within this passing aeon. The objection is that in a kind of panic at all costs to give the emperor or other ruler his due there has been a complete surrender of the wholesome detachment from this imperial or national undertaking which the early Church had been able in its own way and for good reasons to maintain. The objection is that there has been found for war a basic and general justification which through the centuries, and unfortunately with fresh vigour at the Reformation, Christianity has applied to the world, the state, the so-called powers that be, itself, and all its members. There has been lost all feeling for the unheard-of and extraordinary nature of this possibility, namely, of mass killing for the sake of the state, within the realities and laws of this aeon. Even if the message of the Church cannot be the simple one of pacifism, it should surely have been a light in the dark world, at EN80

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~ 55. Freedomfor Life least to the extent of arousing and keeping alert a sense of the enormity of war at any rate amongst its own members and even beyond, and thus of constituting and interposing a strong restraining factor in this matter. But how can it do this when it has itself lost this sense? How can it be, for all its weakness, a small yet significant force for peace when it is obviously no longer horrified by war but willing and able to integrate it quite smoothly into the system of political life recognised by it, and then into its own Christian system? The primary and supreme task of Christian ethics in this matter is surely to recover and manifest a distinctive horror of war and aloofness from it.

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A first essential is that war should not on any account be recognised as a normal, fixed and in some sense necessary part of what on the Christian view constitutes the just state, or the political order demanded by God. Certainly the state as such possesses power and must be able to exercise it. But it does this in any case, and it is no primary concern of Christian ethics to say that it should do so, or to maintain that the exercise of power constitutes the essence of the state, i.e., its opus propriumEN81, or even a part of it. What Christian ethics must insist is that it is an opus alienumEN82 for the state to have to exercise power. It cannot assure the state that in the exercise of power either the state or its organs may do gaily and confidently whatever they think is right. In such cases it must always confront them with the question whether there is really any necessity for this exercise. Especially the state must not be given carte biancheEN83 to grasp the ultima ratioEN84 of organising mass slaughter in its dealings with other states. Christian ethics cannot insist too loudly that such mass slaughter might well be mass murder, and therefore that this final possibility should not be seized like any other, but only at the very last hour in the darkest of days. The Church and theology have first and supremely to make this detached and delaying movement. If they do not first and for a long time make this the burden of their message, if they do not throw in their weight decisively on this side of the scales, they have become savourless salt, and must not be surprised if they are freely trampled underfoot on every side. It is also to be noted that, if the Church and theology think otherwise, if they do not say this first, if they do not throw in their weight on this side, if they speak tediously and tritely of war as a political opus propriumEN85, then at the striking of the last hour in the darkest of days they will be in no position to say authentically and authoritatively what they may say at such a time. That is to say,they will be in no position authentically and authoritatively to issue a call to arms, to the political opus alienumEN86• For they can do this only if they have previously held aloof, calling for peace right up to the very last moment. The naivety with which an older and not so very much older ethics has tried to justify war EN81 EN82 EN83 EN84 EN85 EN86

proper work alien work a blank cheque limit case proper work alien work

2.

in terms

of the nature

The Protection of Life

of the state or the historical

existence

of nations

is now quite out-

moded and wholly unacceptable. I quote T. Haering (Das ChristlicheLeben, 1907,427): "If the Christian deliberately wants the state for the sake of the kingdom of God, then with this means to advance the kingdom of God he must also want the means by which the state is supported. But there is no penal law above the various nations; its ultimate means to maintain its rights is war, the self-defence of nations." unchristian,

I also quote W. Herrmann (Ethik, 1909, 212): "War itself is neither Christian nor neither moral nor immoral. In certain historical circumstances it is the impera-

tive expression

of human

War is "ethically justified" nation

or its culture.

Hence

nature

as this has developed

if it is politically

with civilisation

(!) to political

right as an act of self-assertion

"we can participate

with a good conscience

life. "

on the part of a

only in a state which

pledges its might for the right, not merely within its own borders against the criminal, but also against another state which uses force against it." Again, I quote A. Schlatter (Christliche Ethik, 1914, 138): "In the dealings of one nation with another, we have also to reckon with the possibility of quarrels, and to prepare accordingly. Hence there can be no Christian objection

to conscription.

We continually

enjoy the security

of the state and the benefits

procured by the army." It was on the basis of this kind of teaching concerning the state that not merely the world but Christianity itself stumbled into the First World War. I now turn to P. Althaus (Grundriss der Ethik, 1931, 106 f.): "The nations are indeed summoned to a common life and reciprocal responsibility." But if this interdependence is a norm overruling their relations, then the "living laws of history entail that it should also have the form of opposition when one nation with its vocational question comes into collision in living history with the vocational question of another nation." Living history poses questions in which right is not merely opposed to wrong, or wrong to right, but right to right. "The law of conflict has a more elemental basis than the human will; it is part of the fate of all living creatures which the Christian conscience knows to be associated with the sin of humanity; it thus stands or falls with history generally." Final decisions in the "truly great" questions are not to be sought in legal verdicts, since the historical right of a people depends on a power still to be demonstrated. This right must be determined in the venture of a historical act in which it concentrates its whole power upon its vocation. The inevitability of war rests on this foundation. It was in accordance with this kind of theological wisdom that in belief in "living history," in the "law of conflict," and in the determining of right by might, new "historical acts" were ventured in 1938, and the Second World War began. And only a few years after its termination the question of German remilitarisation has given rise to similar pernicious nonsense. Surely we cannot really continue to believe all this. But what is the flaw in these theological utterances? Their mistake obviously does not consist in their rejection of absolute pacifism. In this respect we have no quarrel with them. Their real defect is their utter oblivion to the relative power of the pacifist thesis, and therefore their refusal to face up to the sixth commandment and the naked horror of war. Their real defect is their failure to consider first the abomination of war. Their real defect is that, in their obvious concern not to be regarded as crazy fanatics, they accept the possibility of war as so patent and certain that, when they come to speak of the state or nation, they handle war as if it were just as natural as police action. Do not all these theologians give us the impression that basically they have not yet outgrown the historical picture of so many 19th- and early 20th-century historical text-books, which find the true essentials of universal and national history both ancient and modern in the campaigns, battles and conflicts waged on land and sea? This is a sphere in which there is a true and urgent need for demythologisation! In theology at least the state must no longer be viewed in terms of this historical picture. Even with the reservations also made, we would prefer

not to read the statement

by Emil Brunner

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in Das Gebot und die Ordnungen,

1932,456

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(E.T. The Divine Imperative, 469) that war is of the very essence of the state. Ought not a Christian affirmation of the state to separate war from its essence? Do we have to be pacifists to speak in this way?Is not the fear that mass slaughter might be mass murder, and therefore the fear lest the state, in and for which Christians. are also and primarily responsible, might regard mass slaughter as part of its opus propriumEN87 to be claimed as a right-is not this fear necessarily much more urgent for Christian ethics than the fear that it might be to some extent confused with pacifism? Is it not inevitable that Christian ethics should actually keep company with pacifism for a good part of the way?

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What Christian ethics has to emphasise is that neither inwardly nor outwardly does the normal task of the state, which is at issue even in time of war, consist in a process of annihilating rather than maintaining and fostering life. Nor should it be rashly maintained that annihilating life is also part of the process of maintaining and fostering it. Biological wisdom of this kind cannot serve as the norm or rule in ethics. The state which Christian ethics can and must affirm, which it has to proclaim as the political order willed and established by God, is not in itself and as such the mythological beast of the jungle, the monster with the Janus head, which by its very nature is prepared at any moment to turn thousands into killers and thousands more into killed. The Church does the state no honour, nor does it help it, if in relation to it it acts on this assumption concerning its nature. According to the Christian understanding, it is no part of the normal task of the state to wage war; its normal task is to fashion peace in such a way that life is served and war kept at bay. If there is a mistake in pacifism, apart from the inadvisable ethical absolutism of its thesis, it consists in its abstract negation of war, as if war could be understood and negated in isolation and not in relation to the so-called peace which precedes it. Our attention should be directed to this relation. It is when a state does not rightly pursue its normal task that sooner or later it is compelled to take up the abnormal one of war, and therefore to inflict this abnormal task on other states. It is when the power of the state is insufficient to meet the inner needs of the country that it will seek an outer safety-valvefor the consequent unrest and think it is found in war. It is when interest-bearing capital rather than man is the objectwhose maintenance and increase are the meaning and goal of the political order that the mechanism is already set going which one day will send men to kill and be killed. Against such a perversion of peace neither the supposed, though already undermined and no longer steadfast, love of the masses for peace, nor the well-meant and vocal declaiming of idealists against war, is of any avail. For the point is that when war does break out it is usually the masses who march, and even the clearest words spoken against war, and the most painful recollections of previous wars, are rendered stale and impotent. A peace which is no real peace can make war inevitable. Hence the first, basic and decisive point which Christian ethics must make in this matter is that the state, the totality of responsible citizens, and each individual in his EN87

proper work

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The Protection of Life

own conduct should so fashion peace while there is still time that it will not lead to this explosion but make war superfluous and unnecessary instead of inevitable. Relatively speaking, it requires no great faith, insight nor courage to condemn war radically and absolutely, for no one apart from leaders of the armaments industry and a few high-ranking officers really believes that war is preferable to peace. Again, it requires no faith, insight nor courage at all to howl with the wolves that unfortunately war belongs no less to the present world order, historical life and the nature of the state than does peace, so that from the very outset we must regard it as an emergency for which preparation must be made. What does require Christian faith, insight and courage-and the Christian Church and Christian ethics are there to show them-is to tell nations and governments that peace is the real emergency to which all our time, powers and ability must be devoted from the very outset in order that men may live and live properly, so that no refuge need be sought in war, nor need there be expected from it what peace has denied. Pacifists and militarists are usually agreed in the fact that for them the fashioning of peace as the fashioning of the state for democracy, and of democracy for social democracy, is a secondary concern as compared with rearmament or disarmament. It is for this reason that Christian ethics must be opposed to both. Neither rearmament nor disarmament can be a first concern, but the restoration of an order of life which is meaningful and just. When this is so, the two slogans will not disappear. They will have their proper place. They will come up for discussion at the proper time. But they will necessarily lose their fanatical tone, since far more urgent concerns will be up for discussion. And there can always be the hope that some day both will prove to be irrelevant. It is only against the background of this first concern, and only as the Church has a good conscience that it is doing its best for ajust peace among states and nations, that it can and should plead for the preservation of peace among states and nations, for fidelity and faith in their mutual dealings as the reasonable presupposition of a true foreign policy, for solid agreements and alliances and their honest observance, for international courts and conventions, and above all, and in all nations, for openness, understanding and patience towards others and for such education of young people as will lead them to prefer peace to war. The Church can and should raise its voice against the institution of standing armies in which the officers constitute per seEN88 a permanent danger to peace. It can and should resist all kinds of hysterical or premature war scares. It exists in this aeon. Hence it is not commissioned to proclaim that war is absolutely avoidable. But it is certainly commissioned to oppose the satanic doctrine that war is inevitable and therefore justified, that it is unavoidable and therefore right when it occurs, so that Christians have to participate in it. Even in a world in which states and nations are still in the early stages and never at the end of the long road in respect of that first concern, EN88

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~ 55. Freedom for Life there is never in practice an absolute necessity of war, and the Church certainly has neither right nor obligation to affirm this necessity either in general or in detail as the occasion may arise. We do not need optimism but simply a modicum of sane intelligence to recognise that relatively if not absolutely, in practice if not in principle, war can be avoided to a very large extent. The Church must not preach pacifism, but it must see to it that this sane intelligence is voiced and heard so long as this is possible, and that the many ways of avoiding war which now exist in practice should be honestly applied until they are all exhausted. It is better in this respect that the Church should stick to its post too long and become a forlorn hope than that it should leave it too soon and then have to realise that it has become unfaithful by yielding to the general excitement, and that it is thus the accessory to an avoidable war which can only be described as mass murder. In excitement and propaganda there lurks already the mass killing which can only be mass murder. On no account, not even in extremisEN89, should the Church be found among the agitators or use their language. Deliberate agitators, and those deceived by them, must always be firmly and quietly resisted, whether they like it or not. And this is what the Church can do with its word. Hence its word must never be a howling with the pack. If only the Church had learned the two lessons (a) of Christian concern for the fashioning of true peace among nations to keep war at bay, and (b) of Christian concern for peaceful measures and solutions among states to avert war; if only these two requirements and their unconditional primacy were the assured possession of all Christian ethics, we might feel better assured both against misunderstandings and also against threatened relapses into the postConstantinian theology of war, and we might therefore be confident to say that we cannot accept the absolutism of the pacifist thesis, and that Christian support for war and in war is not entirely beyond the bounds of possibility. [461]

It might be argued that it is inopportune to say this to-day. But surely it is always most opportune to keep to the truth. And the truth in this matter surely includes this further point. Even the cogent element of truth in the pacifist position-more cogent perhaps to-day than ever before-will surely benefit rather than suffer if it is not presented as the exclusive and total truth, but is deliberately qualified, perhaps at the expense of logical consistency, by this further point. After all, the consistency of ethics, or at any rate of theological ethics, may for once differ from that of logic.

This further point rests on the assumption that the conduct of one state or nation can throw another into the wholly abnormal situation of emergency in which not merely its greater or lesser prosperity but its very existence and autonomy are menaced and attacked. In consequence of the attitude of this other state, a nation can find itself faced by the question whether it must surrender or assert itself as such in face of the claims of the other. Nothing less than this final question must be at issue if a war is to be just and necessary. EN89

in extreme cases

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The Protection of Life

Perhaps a state desires to expand politically, geographically or economically, and therefore to extend its frontiers and dominion. Perhaps it thinks it necessary to rectify its internal conditions, e.g., to bring about political unity, by external adventure. Perhaps it considers that its honour and prestige are violated by the attitude of another state. Perhaps it feels that it is threatened by a shift in the balance of power among other states. Perhaps it thinks it sees in the internal conditions of another state, whether revolutionary or reactionary, a reason for displeasure or anxiety. Perhaps it believes it can and should ascribe to itself a historical mission, e.g., a call to lead and rule other nations. All this may well be so. Yetit certainly does not constitute a valid reason for setting one's own great or little war machine in motion, for sending out one's troops to the battlefield to kill and be killed. Such aims may be well worth striving for. But they are too paltry to be worth the terrible price involved in their realisation by war. War for such reasons could alwayshave been avoided. War for such reasons is an act of murder. When such reasons lie on one side of the scale, and the knowledge of war and its necessary terrors on the other, we should have to be either incorrigible romanticists or malevolent sophists even to doubt which side ought to rise and which to fall. The Christian Church has to testify unambiguously that wars waged for such reasons are not just, and therefore ought not to be undertaken. Even the existence or non-existence of a state does not alwaysconstitute a valid reason for war. It can sometimes happen that the time of a state in its present form of existence has expired, that its independent life has no more meaning nor basis, and that it is thus better advised to yield and surrender, continuing its life within a greater nexus of states. There are times when this kind of question has to be raised and answered. As is well-known,Jeremiah did not repeat the message of Isaiah in an earlier situation, but summoned the people to submit rather than resist. We may well imagine a case in which the witness of the Christian Church ought to have a similar material content. Indeed, it is only in answer to this particular question that there is a legitimate reason for war, namely, when a people or state has serious grounds for not being able to assume responsibility for the surrender of its independence, or, to put it even more sharply, when it has to defend within its borders the independence which it has serious grounds for not surrendering. The sixth commandment is too urgent to permit of the justification of war by Christian ethics on any other grounds.

Why do we have to allow the possibility that in the light of the divine commandment this is ajustifiable reason for war, so that a war waged for this reason must be described as a just war in spite of all the horrors which it will certainly entail? The obvious answer is that there may well be bound up with the independent life of a nation responsibility for the whole physical, intellectual and spiritual life of the people comprising it, and therefore their relationship to God. It may well be that in and with the independence of a nation there is entrusted to its people something which, without any claim or pretension, they are commissioned to attest to others, and which they may not therefore surrender. It may well be that with the independence of the state, and perhaps in the form of the legally constituted society guaranteed by it, they would also have to yield something which must not be betrayed, which is necessarily more important to them than the preservation of life itself, and which is thus more important than the preservation of the lives of those who unfortunately are trying to take it from them. It may well be that they are thus forbidden by God 133

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S 55. Freedom for Life to renounce the independent status of their nation, and that they must therefore defend it without considering either their own lives or the lives of those who threaten it. Christian ethics cannot possibly deny that this case may sometimes occur. The divine command itself posits and presents it as a case of extreme urgency. I may remark in passing that I myself should see it as such a case if there were any attack on the independence, neutrality and territorial integrity of the Swiss Confederation, and I should speak and act accordingly.

[463J

But a similar situation may arise in a different form, e.g., when a state which is not itself directly threatened or attacked considers itself summoned by the obligation of a treaty or in some other way to come to the aid of a weaker neighbour which does actually find itself in this situation. In solidarity with the state which it tries to help, it will then find itself in a position of true emergency. At such a time Christian ethics can no longer be absolutely pacifist. It cannot, therefore, oppose all military action, nor resist all military armament. If it has said all there is to be said about true peace and the practical avoidability of war; if it has honestly and resolutely opposed a radical militarism, it may then add that, should the command of God require a nation to defend itself in such an emergency, or in solidarity with another nation in such an emergency, then it not only may but must do so. It may also add that if this is basically the only reason for war on the basis of its constitution and history and in the minds of all its responsible citizens, then it may and must prepare for it even in peacetime. For even though this preparation has in view the terrible venture of killing and being killed, with all that this entails, the venture itself is inescapably demanded. A distinctively Christian note in the acceptance of this demand is that it is quite unconditional. That is to say,it is independent of the success or failure of the enterprise, and therefore of the strength of one's own forces in comparison with those of the e~emy. Perhaps we have here a sound and explicit criterion of the presence of a true emergency in which war is inescapable. For if the venture is envisaged only in conditions which seem to guarantee success; if there is an eye to the prospects; if the resolve to fight depends on the greater or lesser chances which one thinks one enjoys or not, then obviously no categorical summons to war has been issued either by what has to be defended or by God. Hence there is no true necessity nor genuine emergency, and it is better to refrain from fighting. Did not the "defeatism" of Jeremiah have a clear basis in the fact that the prevailing war fever in Jerusalem was largely caused and limited by their furtive glances at Egypt, that they really expected salvation and victory from that quarter, and that they did not therefore dare to fight alone in reliance on the justice of their cause, as Isaiah had previously required of Ahaz in relation to the two tails of smoking firebrands (Is. 74)?

We cannot separate the question of the just war from the two questions of faith on the one side and obedience on the other. And these are reciprocal. If war is ventured in obedience and therefore with a good conscience, it is also ventured in faith and therefore with joyous and reckless determination. And if 134

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it is really ventured in the necessary faith, its basis is not found in mere enthusiasm but in the simple fact that, perhaps most unwillingly and certainly with a heavy heart, it has to be waged in obedience and certainly cannot be shirked for the sake of a worthless peace. Conversely, "if ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established" (Is. 79). This means that the Christian Church will have its own part to play in a state which finds itself in this kind of emergency and therefore forced into war. But we can also see in what sense it must stand by this nation, rousing, comforting and encouraging it, yet also calling it to repentance and conversion. There can certainly be no question of howling with the pack, or of enunciating a military code invented ad hOCEN90, but only of preaching the Gospel of the lordship of God's free grace and of direction to the prayer which will not consist in the invocation of a pagan god of history and battles, but which will always derive from, and return to, the dona nobis pacem EN9l. In this form, however, the message of the Church may and should be a call to martial resolution which can be righteous only as an act of obedience but which as such can be truly righteous, which can be powerful only as an act of faith but which as such can be truly powerful. If right up to the last moment the Church has really devoted itself to the inculcation of the first two lessons, it need not be afraid that in a genuine emergency it will not have the right word of help and guidance, i.e., this third lesson. Nor need it be concerned lest it should compromise itself with this word in face of the fact that even the most just of wars might end in defeat. The Church which does not give any easy sanction to war, which constantly seeks to avert it, which is studious to avoid any general or institutional approval in principle, which proclaims peace alone as the will of God both internally and externally, which testifies to the very last against unjust reasons for war-this Church is able in a true emergency, or in the rare case of a just war, to tell men that, even though they now have to kill, they are not murderers, but may and must do the will of God in this opus alienumEN92 of the state. We have still to consider, however, the same question with reference to the responsibility and decision of the individual. Thus far we have discussed it in relation to the state, war being an action undertaken by the state as a whole. On the Christian view, however, the state is not a strange, lofty and powerful hypostasis suspended over the individual, dominating him, and thinking, willing and deciding for him. To be sure, individuals are included in its jurisdiction and brought under its authority. Individuals are protected by it and owe allegiance to it. Yet in the very same process it is they who support and maintain it. Enjoying its relative perfections, they also share, even if only by silence or inaction, in its imperfections. They bear responsibility for its condition, and EN90 EN91 EN92

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for what is done or not done by it. They are in the same boat with its government, whatever its constitutional form and however acceptable or not. They are in solidarity with the majority of its citizens, whether they belong to this majority or not. The infamous statement attributed to Louis XIV can and should be corrected. Every individual in his own place and function is the state. If the state is a divine order for the continued existence of which Christians should pray, we can also say that, as they themselves are the Church, so they are also the state. Hence the state cannot relieve the individual of any responsibility. On the contrary, the state is wholly a responsibility of the individual. Nor is this any less true of war as a responsibility of the individual. The state wages war in the person of the individual. In war it is he, the individual man or woman, who must prepare for, further, support and in the last analysis execute the work of killing. It is part of the responsibility that in so doing he must risk his own life. But the decisive point is that he must be active in the destruction of the lives of others. The question whether this is permissible and even obligatory is not merely addressed to the state; it is also addressed specifically and in full seriousness to the individual. .

[465]

The utter incomprehensibility of older Christian ethics emerges again in the fact that in this matter it lightly skips over the individual, or simply refers him to the collective authority of the ruler, government, people, or state, as though the state were in fact a hypostasis suspended over him, thinking, willing and deciding for him, and claiming his unquestioning obedience. His own scruples in respect of war, the protest of his conscience, his personal reflections and free resolves, are all nipped in the bud by the general assertion that the individual has no responsibility in the question, having been deprived of it by the responsible decision of some higher national authority. He is assured that in this decision of others he must see the will of God, that he must not on any account contradict it, that he can and should act merely as a causa instrumentalisEN93, and therefore that he can and should fight, stab and shoot to the best of his ability with a good conscience. The terrible carnage of war is explained to him as a neutral and indifferent action; and he is also assured that for him it is a good work if done obediently on the responsibility of others. And, of course, the more eagerly this doctrine is expounded, the more industriously and seriously it is also proclaimed that it is because humanity is so sinful that war is inevitable, as though the demand for irresponsible killing did not itself plunge men directly into sin. It is surely obvious that in fact we render the state the worst possible service by telling men not to accept personal responsibility but to shift it on to the state. For this is to make of the state willynilly the soulless, despotic and cannibalistic beast of the abyssfrom which, when it has been said that its will must be respected as that of God, there is then a resigned, pietistic and quite arbitrary turning aside to the consolations of supposed peace in the community and the coming kingdom of God. In this respect, too, Christian ethics stands in urgent need of revision. What is required is the ending at this highly dangerous point of the illusory distinction between individual and social ethics, and therefore the giving of due weight here too, without diminution or qualification, to the biblical: "Thou art the man." If we cannot undo the past, we have a duty towards the future; and rivers of blood may remain unshed if the Church will only begin by saying to the individual: "Thou art asked whether thou dost kill righteously, or whether thou dost kill unrighteously and art therefore a murderer." EN93

instrumental cause

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The Protection of Life

As and because this same question is put to the state, it is also a genuine concern of each individual responsible for it and within it. This means, however, that the individual is asked to consider with the state what the state has to consider, not as a private person in a private affair and from a private standpoint, but as a citizen in an affair of state and from a civic standpoint, yet also personally and in personal responsibility. At a specific point and in a specific way it all applies also and especially to him. He personally is asked whether he hears the commandment and sees war in its terrible reality. He is asked whether he is working for the righteous inner peace which cannot lead to war, or whether he is contributing to a rotten and unjust peace which contains the seeds of war. He is asked whether he is helping on the many positive and restraining measures for the avoidance of war, or perhaps the opposite. He is asked whether in his own conduct and general behaviour, his way of thinking and speaking, what he permits or forbids himself to do, what he supports or hinders in others, he is postponing or preventing war. Is he clear that if war comes it will not be vertically up from the kingdom of demons butdemonically enough-through men, and that he himself will be one of the men who are guilty or innocent in relation to it? Again, has he set aside all inadequate and false reasons for war, and is he not only prepared to be but genuinely at work as a public and positive witness that most of the reasons are in fact inadequate and false, and do not justify such a dreadful act? Only when he has faced these questions is he finally asked whether, in the event of a true emergency arising in spite of everything for his nation or state, he is willing and ready ultima ratione, in extremisEN94, to accept war and military training, to do so as a Christian, and therefore to do so fearlessly in spite of all that it entails, shouldering personal responsibility not merely for being killed but for the much more horrible act of killing. Again, the application is to the individual, not as a private person, but as a citizen, as a man whose obedience to the command of God means also that he must think and speak and act and pray with and for the state. There is no alternative. In all these aspects the question of war must be asked and answered as a personal question. And perhaps the most important contribution that Christian ethics can make in this field is to lift the whole problem inexorably out of the indifferent sphere of general political and moral discussion and to translate it into the personal question: "What hast thou so far done or failed to do in the matter, and what art thou doing or failing to do at this moment?" Killing is a very personal act, and being killed a very personal experience. It is thus commensurate with the thing itself that even in the political form which killing assumes in war it should be the theme of supremely personal interrogation. In this connexion scription

EN94

we may conclude

and conscientious

objection.

as a last resort, in extreme cases

with a consideration

of the specific problems

of con-

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The pacifist demand for the abolition of conscription (cf]. G. Heering, ap. cit., p. 252 f) is shortsighted. For conscription has the salutary effect of bringing home the question of war. War is an affair of the state and therefore of the totality of its subjects, not of a minority or majority of volunteers or militarists. All citizens share responsibility for it both in peace and war. They thus share the burden of this responsibility, and must themselves face the question whether it is right or wrong. This fact is given due expression and brought right home by conscription, whereas it is glossed over in every other type of military constitution. To make military service once again something for mercenary or volunteer armies would be to absolve the individual from direct responsibility for war and to leave both war itself and the resultant "moral odium," as Heering calls it, to others. In other words, non-participation becomes a matter of particular prudence and virtue in the one case, and participation of particular stupidness and wickedness in the other. If anything is calculated to perpetuate war, it is this Pharisaic attitude. Conscription, however, has the invaluable advantage of confronting both the prudent and the stupid, both the peace-loving and less peace-loving, with the problem of the belligerent state as their own personal problem, and conversely of compelling them to express their own personal attitude to war in their responsibility as citizens of the state instead of treating it merely as a matter of private opinion. If the state makes participation in war obligatory upon all, the individual must face the question whether as a citizen he can approve and co-operate in war, i.e., every war as such, or whether as a citizen he must resist and evade it. The abolition of conscription would take the edge off this decision for those not personally affected. It would make it merely political rather than both political and personal. This could not possibly contribute to the serious discussion or solution of the problem of war. Pacifists, therefore, should be the very last to call for the abolition of conscription. The dignity of an absolute divine command cannot, of course, be ascribed to military service. Although the state must claim it from the individual as a compulsory duty, and although its fulfilment is urgently prompted in the first instance by the relation of the individual to the state, it can finally be understood only as a question which is put to him and which no one can answer but himself The state is not God, nor can it command as He does. No compulsory duty which it imposes on the individual, nor urgency with which it presses for its fulfilment, can alter the fact that the attitude of the individual to all its decisions and measures, and therefore to this too, is limited and defined by his relationship to God, so that, although as a citizen he is committed to what is thought right and therefore resolved by the government or the majority, he is not bound by it finally or absolutely. Hence it cannot be denied that in virtue of his relationship to God the individual may sometimes find himself compelled, even with a full sense of his loyalty as a citizen, to contradict and oppose what is thought right and resolved by the government or the majority. He will be aware of the exceptional character of this action. Such insubordination cannot be ventured too easily or frequently. He will also be aware of the risk entailed. He cannot but realise that by offering resistance he renders himself liable to prosecution. He cannot deny to the government or the majority the right to take legal and constitutional proceedings against him. He must not be surprised or aggrieved if he has to bear the consequences of his resistance. He must be content in obedience to God to accept his responsibility as a citizen in this particular way. The contradiction and resistance to compulsory military service can indeed take the form of the actual refusal of individuals to submit to conscription as legally and constitutionally imposed by the government or the majority, and therefore of their refusal to participate directly either in war itself or preparation for it. Such refusal means that these individuals think they must give a negative answer to the question posed by conscription, even though it is put to them in the form of a compulsory duty calling urgently for fulfilment. Two formal presuppositions are essential if such refusal of military service by one or more

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individuals is to be accepted as imperative and therefore legitimate. The first is that the objector must accomplish his act of insubordination in the unity of his individual and personal existence with his existence as a citizen. There can be no question of calming his private conscience by binding his civic conscience. His relationship to God will not absolve him from his obligation to the state; it will simply pose it in a specific way,which may perhaps be this way. Quite apart from less worthy motives, it cannot be merely a matter of satisfying his own personal abhorrence of violence and bloodshed, of keeping his own hands clean. Mis refusal of military service can have nothing whatever to do with even the noblest desertion of the state, and certainly not with anarchy. He must be convinced and assured that by his opposition he stands and acts for the political community as willed and ordained by God, not denying the state but affirming it in contrast to the government, the majority, the existing law and constitution. His refusal of military service must have the meaning and character of an appeal from the badly informed state of the present to the better informed state of the future. Therefore, notwithstanding all appearances to the contrary, it must be intended and executed as an act of loyalty to the state. Second, the man who objects to military service must be prepared to accept without murmur or complaint the consequences of the insubordinate form of his national loyalty, the hostility of the government or majority to which he may be exposed, and the penalty of his violation of the existing law and constitution. He cannot demand that the state which in his view is badly informed should treat him as though it were already what he hopes it will be, namely, the better informed state of to-morrow. He cannot ask, therefore, for considerate exceptions in the administration of valid decrees, or even for protective laws of exemption, in the case of those likeminded with himself. He should certainly not try to be drafted to the medical or pioneer corps instead of the infantry. He should not ask for the impossible, claiming on the one hand to act as a prospective martyr, and on the other to be spared from martyrdom after all, or at least to have it made easier for him. He must act honestly and consistently as a revolutionary, prepared to pay the price of his action, content to know that he has on his side both God and the better informed state of the future, hoping to bear an effective witness to it to-day,but ready at least to suffer what rebus sic stantibusEN95 his insubordination must now entail. If these two presuppositions are not present, there can be no question of true conscientious objection, i.e., of the objection which is commanded and therefore legitimate. There is also a material error in conscientious objection, however, ifit rests on an absolute refusal of war, i.e., on the absolutism of radical pacifism. In such a case, it is no less rebellion against the command of God than an affirmation of war and participation in it on the basis of radical militarism, i.e., of the superstition of the inevitability of war, of the view that it is an element in the divine world order and an essential constituent of the state. If we are genuinely ready to obey the command of God, we cannot go so far either to the right or to the left as to maintain such absolute ethical tenets and modes of action in loyalty to Him. On the contrary, we shall have to take account of the limitation of even the best of human views, principles, and attitudes. In the national loyalty which is always required, conscientious objection is possible only if it is relative and not absolute, and therefore if it is not tainted by the idea that the state is utterly forbidden in any circumstances either to wage war or to prepare for it. Exercised with political responsibility, it must include the readiness of the conscientious objector in other circumstances and in face of other demands to renounce the insubordination which is commanded in certain concrete conditions, and therefore to do alwayswhat he is required to do in a given case. He must never allow his conscientious objection to infringe upon either the freedom of the commanding God or his own freedom, EN95

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i.e., the freedom of his civic conscience. He must fulfil it as a free person, and as one who wills to remain free, in this twofold sense. Anti-militarism on principle logically leads to an illegitimate type of conscientious objection. On the other hand, conscientious objection may well be necessary and legitimate in a situation in which one or more persons cannot fail to see that the cause for which the state is arming or waging war is concretely an evil one, that the war in which they are asked to participate is one of the many unjust and irresponsible wars which are not risked out of a genuine emergency but planned and embarked upon deliberately. It is not to be expected that in such a situation this recognition will be a general one, or that it will take a specific form among the people at large. It may often be current as an obscure premonition on the part of many, and official propaganda will naturally do all it can to prevent it breaking through. But in such a situation it will certainly obtrude upon certain individuals in such a definite form that in spite of all official propaganda they cannot conceal the fact, but are taught by the divine command, that they must protest against this war not only in thought and word but also by conscientious objection. This does not mean that they will be released from their responsibility to the state. It means that they will have to discharge this responsibility in such a way that they refuse to fulfil the duty of military service, not in principle, but in relation to the concrete military action now demanded, believing that in so doing they desire the very best for the state, ready to suffer for the fact that what they desire differs from what is desired by the government or the majority, and therefore at peace with God and also in the deepest sense with their own conscience. The fact that in a concrete political situation individuals may have to act like this, and therefore to refuse military service, according to the command of God, is a possibility for which provision can hardly be made in political law but which Christian ethics certainly cannot deny as such. It is thus strange that even Schleiermacher (Chr. Sitte, 284) should dare to make the statement: "To exclude oneself from participation in war, if one does not consider it to be just, is rebellion." This is surely wrong as a general proposition. An individual may hold an erroneous opinion as to whether a war is just. And the man who in answering this question thinks that he should act on his objection must realise that he may be mistaken, that he may not really have the command of God on his side at all, and that he thus runs the risk of being a rebel. Nevertheless this does not alter the fact that the question of responsibility for war and warlike preparation must always be heard and answered by individuals. Each has to consider whether the state and therefore he himself is really acting responsibly in a given issue. It is at this point, in relation to a concrete war, that there is a place for the personal responsibility and decision of the individual in a practical form. The government or majority in any state has to reckon with the fact that individuals cannot spare themselves but have necessarily to put the personal question of responsibility for the specific war at issue, and that it may happen that they will have to return a negative answer to the question even in practice. It would be a great gain for peace if all governments or majorities in all states knew that they had actually to take this into account. It is, of course, self-evident that individuals cannot be left to deal with this question alone. Here if anywhere the Church, or at any rate enlightened and commissioned men within it, should be at hand and on the watch to give to the individual in changing political situations guidance and direction which are not legalistic, but evangelical, plain and unequivocal, concerning the understanding and keeping of the command of God which is really at issue. How can the Church be neutral or silent in so important and perilous a matter? How can it override the individual conscience by what it says, as is constantly maintained? For far too long the Church has failed to consider the individual conscience and made military obedience a universal duty-and this in the name of God. It is hard to see why, instead of this unhelpful standardisation, it should not first and foremost make it clear that each must

3. The Active Life decide from case to case whether the obedience demanded in the name of God does really coincide with military service. Why should the two coincide? We have seen, of course, that there are a few wars which are necessary, demanded and responsible, and where this is the case the Church should be the first to say so and faithfully to champion the view that miltary service applies to all and must be rendered by all. But nowhere is it written that alwaysand in all circumstances the Church must take this line. If its eyes are open, and the command of God rings in its ears, it might sometimes have to take the opposite view. From what we may hope will be its higher vantage point, it might sometimes see things in a way which is very different from that which the government or the majority think to be right. In the light of the divine command it might find itself called to express this different outlook and to seek to establish its validity.And since it ought to be able to do this with a broader vision and greater wisdom than any solitary individual, its duty is to bring its consolation, admonition and encouragement to the aid of the free conscience of the individual. In so doing, it might have to accept the odium of unreliability in the eyes of the government or majority. In certain cases, it might have to be prepared to face threats or suffering, bearing for its part the total risk of this kind of revolutionary loyalty.But there have been prophets willing to take this risk before, and where does the Church learn that it is absolved from facing the same risk? Can it really be surprised, in the light of its origin and task, ifit is sometimes asked to bear a dangerous witness and to be treated accordingly? Is this price really too high if the result is a penetration into the general consciousness that for all its weakness the Church is at least a retarding factor in regard to war, a genuinely unreliable element upon whose co-operation it is impossible to count unconditionally, since it may at any time be found in opposition? The state which is at war or preparing for it, if it knows that the Church will follow its own law and understanding, sometimes voting for military service but sometimes voting against it, will then find in the Church both its necessary frontier and yet also its deepest basis and surest support. And when can it be more salutary for the state to have to reckon with this frontier than when it is a matter of its ultima ratioEN96, and therefore of the question whether it will show itself to be representative of the divine order or become a mass murderer in perversion of this order?

3. THE ACTIVE LIFE Thus far we have understood human life as a loan which God has made to man, and we have therefore considered the freedom to which the command of God summons him as the freedom to treat his own life and that of his fellows with the respect and solicitude due to it, or rather due to its Creator and Lord. Our present concern is to see life as a task which God has imposed on man, and therefore to see the freedom to which he is summoned as the freedom for an active life, i.e., a life lived by man as his own act in obedience to his Creator and Lord. We thus execute a rightabout turn. Our subject, of course, remains unchanged. Not only man, but God supremely, is one; and therefore the sanctifying command which we have to investigate is one. Yet we have also to remember that God as the one God is also the living God. His commanding EN96

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is thus a living commanding which constantly renews and perpetuates the history of His relation to man and by which man is summoned to follow Him on His own way as his Commander. Hence, if we are to understand it, we must be prepared to see that it continually discloses new and apparently opposing aspects, like successive steps along the same path or the ensuing pages of a single book, which certainly limit, supersede and supplement, though they do not, of course, negate, those which precede. We can thus understand and obey the command of God only if we do not let ourselves be vexed at having to pursue further the path indicated or to continue reading the book in question. In our continued reading, we now turn to the aspect of human life according to which it is not simply a life to be maintained and cherished, nor an object to be protected from various forms of assault, but rather itself an active, effective and creative subject, and therefore an active life. What characterises the creatureliness, nature, existence and life of man, and therefore man as such, is that he does not merely exist in a different way from inanimate things, but that he also lives in a different way from plants and animals. In other words, he exists and lives in freedom. He exists and lives as his immediate future is a task which he sees and accepts, and as every step into the future is a fulfilment of this task to be accomplished by himself. He exists and lives as he deliberately posits himself in some way in relation to God, to his fellow-men and to his environment. His actions are this deliberate positing of himself. His life is neither the mere duration of his existence nor a mere vegetative nor animal course of events. It is the sequence, nexus or history of his self-positing and therefore of his acts. He lives as he acts, and since he does not live alone, but before God, among his fellow-men and in his environment, he does not merely act but effects something, altering, shaping and producing in his relation to God, to his fellow-men, and to his environment. He accomplishes or even creates things as he directs his energies to do so. This subjective direction and objective accomplishment are the new and distinctive feature of the active life. To be sure, man cannot achieve respect for life nor try to protect it without doing many things, as, for example, preserving his own health and that of others, or trying to enjoy himself and to bring joy to others, or respecting his independence and that of others, or exercising and proving his capacities and those of others, or negatively refraining from all the forms of killing which might be murder and therefore a positive denial of respect for life. Yet we cannot really call these things achievements, because for the most part they consist in inaction or abstention, and above all because they are a form of activity which is designed simply to preserve, cherish and protect, and which is thus preparatory, merely looking forward to the real action which consists in subjective direction and objective achievement. What is done out of respect for human life and with a view to its protection takes place under the necessity of the question as to the purpose of this life. Its goal is that there should be this subjective direction and objective achievement in human life. It takes place in order that life should not be disturbed, or interrupted, or even perhaps

3. The Active Life broken off as the history of human acts. We are commanded to honour and protect life because the active life, i.e., the life in and by which there can be this direction and achievement, has need of space and time and opportunity. But what do we mean by the active life in the sense and along the lines of the command, namely, as obedience towards God? To aim at something, and to achieve it, can obviously be understood concretely as work. And we shall certainly have to deal with the question of work in this connexion. But we are perhaps well advised not to introduce this concept for the moment. For we can hardly say that work in itself and as such is the active life which God requires of man. In its limitations it undoubtedly belongs to the concrete content of the higher and more inclusive concept which must now obtain. It is true enough that what man does and therefore plans and accomplishes according to the divine command includes the fact that he should work. We shall speak of this later. But the specific feature of the action which we call work is that in it man addresses himself decisively to the physical and spiritual cosmos, that he concerns himself with a terrestrial matter, that he bends all his energies to this matter, and that he is assiduously engaged in achieving something in relation to it. The term work, even when we think of its highest and most intellectual forms, denotes the distinctively this-worldly element in the active life required of man. Hence we must be careful not to give this term a central position in the present context, nor to make it a leading concept. The life which is obedient to the command of God is much more than work. Even in so far as work is included, it is not in itself and as such that which is demanded of man. The practical requirements, the ideals and even perhaps the myth of modern Western civilisation with its ethos of work are a very different thing from the command of God. And in this respect particularly we do well to ask ourselves what exactly the command of God is. Is it really "from the Bible that Europe draws her high ideal of the value of all work which helps to create a civilisation," and therefore her superiority, to-day rapidly diminishing, over other continents (E. Brunner, Das Gebotund die Ordnungen, 1932,372, E.T. The Divine Imperative, 384 f.)? It was indeed a decisive moment when Luther attempted to ascribe the dignity of worship with mounting resolution and emphasis to the labours of the field and workshop and nursery rather than the monastery. But both then and later was there not a great deal of exaggeration on the part of Protestants in this matter, as also in their exalting of matrimony over celibacy? How far is this view truly grounded in and supported by the Word of God? It is obvious that the Jesus of the Synoptics and the Fourth Gospel cannot be claimed in support of this high estimation of work. He certainly assumed, as His parables indicate, that secular labour of all sorts and kinds belongs to the life of man and must be undertaken by him. On the other hand, there can be no evading the awkward fact that He never called anyone directly to this type of work. On the contrary. He seems to have summoned His disciples away from their secular work. And even if He Himself was originally a TEKTWV EN97 (Mk. 63), there is no evidence in support of the view that He continued this work after taking up His Messianic office. To be sure, the case of Paul is rather different. We read in Ac. 183 that he and Aquila worked in Corinth as crKTJV07TOLO{EN98, and more than once (2 Thess. 38;

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1 Cor. 412;g6; 2 Cor. 117) he himself refers to the fact that he was accustomed to earn his own living and not to be a burden on others. Again, in several places he forcefully urges the Christians in his congregations to do the same (1 Thess. 411;2 Thess. 310f.;Eph. 428). But his work is done on the margin of his apostolic existence, and such exhortations are given only on the fringe of his apostolic instruction. It is evident that Paul has no positive interest either in work itself or in its achievements. We search both his own writings and the rest of the New Testament in vain for the passion with which the "Subdue the earth" of Gen. 128has been interpreted and applied since the 16th century. But the same is true of the Old Testament. We are surely reading into the saying in Gen. 128more than is actually there if we take it to imply that cultivation is the real task which the Creator has set man; and the same applies to the observation in Gen. 215 that God put man in the Garden of Eden "to dress and to keep it." There is no doubt that in the Old Testament, too, work is a self-evident necessity of life. It is a simple fact that at the rising of the sun man "goeth forth unto his work until the evening" (Ps. 10423).And he should accept this, and not become sluggish, as is clearly impressed upon him by the example of the ant in Provo66-11. The point is, however, that otherwise poverty might seize him like a robber or want like an armed man. There is no option but to work. Hence one of the favourite insights of Protestant ethics, namely, the importance of work to human personality and as a cultural enterprise, is very much in the background, if not completely invisible. Nor should we overlook the fact that the necessity of work, at least in the form in which we know it and must do it, is reckoned among the consequences of the curse of sin in Gen. 317f._a conception which finds unmistakeable expression in Ecclesiastes with its many references to the weariness and final futility of all human labour. Again, the well-known saying i~ Ps. go10is no song of praise to the ten "precious" (Luther) years added to man beyond his allotted threescore and ten, but speaks of them as labour and sorrow, thus expressing weariness at the afflictions characteristic of a life which in any case is so short and passes so quickly. Finally, it is no accident that, although the Ten Commandments include a most emphatic commandment concerning the Sabbath, there is no positive commandment concerning the weekday activity limited by it. Our survey of the biblical evidence does not mean that we depreciate work. It is obvious that according to the witness of the Bible work has its place among the things which man is commanded to do, and that in this place it has its own dignity and importance. But it is also clear that the biblical witness enjoins greater reserve, and, as we might also add, greater relaxation, than has become customary in Protestant ethics generally, not so much under biblical influences, but under the pressure of recent developments in European economy and economics.

The command of God does genuinely demand the active life, namely, that man should set his mind on something and accomplish it. It does not allow him to understand and treat his existence as an end in itself. It does not consist only in the demand that life should be respected and protected. It does not permit him to be satisfied with his life as such, and therefore self-complacently to take his ease and enjoy himself. It does not allow him the kind ofpreoccupation with God, his fellows and his environment which in the last resort means only a more intensive preoccupation with himself and enjoyment of himself. In his more refined as well as his cruder manifestations, the homo incurvatus in seEN99 is one who does not hear the command of God, or who no longer hears EN99

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3. The Active Life it, and who therefore needs to be unrolled and opened up by the command, being summoned out of his impossible isolation and concentration upon himself. Man as God sees him and would have him is not the one who in the words of Provo610 enjoys "a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep." He is the one who in the fine saying of the Psalm "goeth forth unto his work" at the rising of the sun. The command of God summons him to transcend himself, and this is the active life. What is at issue is only a preliminary, relative and limited transcendence, a movement of the creature in the creaturely realm. In this respect there can be no question of a hasty equation, as though man were transported at once into the absolute and could participate in the transcendence of God and even act as the transcendent God. Within these limits, however, man is not left to himself; he must transcend himself in orientation and achievement, and he must do so in his existence understood as the act of his freedom. The relative significance of the older Protestant ethic of work is to be found in this contention. It was directed against the mediaeval overestimation of the vita contemplativaENloo of meditation, prayer and worship in a state of absolute obedience, in contrast to the vita activaEN101 of less perfect states. Not incorrectly, if not altogether correctly, it sensed in this vita contemplativaEN102 the indolence of Proverbs in which man on a sublime basis and in a sublime way seeks to be free only in and for himself, to live only to himself, not to transcend himself nor to let himself be unrolled or opened up, not to embark upon the venture of action. It was historically mistaken in this contention to the extent that the best representatives of the vita contemplativa intended it to be understood only as a supreme form of necessary human activity.It was also materially mistaken to the extent that the secular work which it tried to oppose to the monkish life is not in itself and as such the final and decisive meaning of human activity,but in many cases needs to be limited by another form of life, namely, that of rest, to which it is indeed subjected by the divine command. On the other hand, it was materially correct to the extent that the final and decisive meaning of necessary human activity,true perfection according to the divine command, cannot consist abstractly in this rest or in the rather dubious activityof peaceful contemplation. And in its suspicion that the vita contemplativa has perhaps far too much in common with the indolence condemned in Scripture, it was historically right to the extent that in the monastic ideal of the perfect life there was undoubtedly at work an ancient Greek and Stoic view according to which the perfect man belongs to the higher classes and has the leisure to fashion himself physically, intellectually and aesthetically into a harmonious being, whereas the rest, the real working classes, exist only to procure for the aristocrat, who is occupied with himself and therefore with real living, the basis of existence which he too requires, so that the term used to describe the artisan, i.e., f3avavao~, is given at once the rather derogatory sense so widespread to-day. In opposition to this pagan and in this respect unhealthy ideal, the Reformation with its struggle against the vita contemplativa as a degenerate and pseudo-Christian form, and its concern for the vita activa as an equal obligation upon all, was unquestionably espousing a true interest of the divine command understood in a Christian sense. The only trouble was that it related it immediately and properly only to secular work.

To attain a comprehensive and indeed Christian and biblical concept of the active life in the sense and along the lines of the command, we must try to see ENlOO ENlOI EN102

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it from above, from the standpoint of God, of heaven, of the kingdom of God coming down from heaven to earth, of the providence and universal rule of God, i.e., of its otherworldly aspects and therefore spiritually. It is true enough that in its this-worldly aspects, from our standpoint, the active life is work, or work limited by rest. But not all work is the active life in the sense and along the lines of the command. Hence, to know what is implied we must learn its essential nature from the Word of God, fromJesus Christ. When we have done this, we can return at a deeper level to work as the this-worldly aspect of the active life lived in obedience, and we can thus learn what true work is. An active life lived in obedience must obviously consist in a correspondence to divine action. We are careful not to say in a continuation or development of divine action. All continuations and developments of divine action are still divine and not human action. We are concerned with the sanctification of human life, not, like pagans and fanatics, with its deification. But in the sanctification of human life we are necessarily dealing with the restoration of a correspondence of human action to divine. God commands, and by His commanding He sanctifies human life. God does His work as Creator with the intention that man should respond by doing his work as creature. This doing of his work in correspondence to God's work is human life lived in obedience. But divine action is centrally and decisively the coming of the kingdom of God in Jesus Christ; and around this centre, and with reference to it, it is God's gracious overruling of all world-occurrence. In this action God speaks His Word to which man must reply and to which his active life must correspond if lived in obedience. But what will be the nature and appearance of this correspondence? We can best condense all that must be said on this point into the single biblical concept of service. What this first implies is very generally the service in which man places himself at God's disposal in the light of the divine action in its narrower and wider range and under the address of the Word of God in and with this action. The active life for which man is sanctified, summoned and determined by the command of God means that he is not refractory, indifferent, neutral, nor passive in face of the divine action. It means that he recognises that he himself is laid under obligation by what takes place in Jesus Christ, the King of Israel who is also the King of the world, as the work of God Himself come down from heaven to earth. It means that he lives under this obligation and exercises and expresses his creaturely freedom in its fulfilment. The choice of the concept of service is suggested by Holy Scripture. For in both Testaments this concept denotes specifically and yet comprehensively what might be called the objective character of obedient human action. It does so specifically because in all its range of meaning it fixes so accurately upon what alone can be seriously considered as human action in face of what God does according to the witness of Scripture. And it does so comprehensively because it has a sufficient range of meaning to describe from all essential angles the human action which correspond to the divine.

3. The Active Life We may first refer to Mal. 318, where the difference between the righteous and the wicked is equated with the difference between those who serve and those who do not. We can then go on at once to Mt. 624: "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." In both these sayings the word "God" denotes the Lord of the covenant and the world acting in a definite sequence of decisions, and therefore in both again the concept of "serving God" obviously denotes an act of man in which a decision is executed on his side, and the possibility of not serving God as Malachi puts it, or of serving another lord or mammon according to the Sermon on the Mount, is not chosen but rejected. To serve God is thus to choose God, to the exclusion of neutrality and of another lord. And according to the saying in Malachi, it is the act of this choice which makes us righteous. The fact that this human choice points back and responds to a divine choice, and therefore the human act to a divine, emerges particularly clearly in the negotiations of Moses with Pharaoh concerning the release of Israel as described at the beginning of the Book of Exodus. In accordance with his divine instructions (Ex. 716), Moses has to represent to Pharaoh again and again that he must free Israel to serve Yahweh, until at last Pharaoh acknowledges this (though he later changes his mind again): "Go, serve the Lord, as ye have said" (Ex. 1231). To serve Yahweh is evidently the direct meaning of the free existence which Israel does not have in Egypt and cannot secure for itself, but which is finally attained for it by the judgment of Yahweh on Pharaoh and his people. To serve Him is to be this people delivered by God and to do what corresponds to this deliverance and has to be done as a matter of course on the basis of Israel's freedom. All the later exhortations to serve God as they recur so frequently, especially in the Book of Deuteronomy, and the famous parting scene inJosh. 24 in which Israel is again summoned to choose whom it will serve and again unanimously chooses the service of this one God, speak equally clearly of God's gracious action towards Israel, of the self-evident consequence of this for its own action in relation to God, and finally of the by no means so self-evident resolve and act in which this self-evident consequence has to be continually recognised and actualised by it. To serve God alone (1 Sam. 3 7 ), to fear Him, to serve and hear Him (1 Sam. 1214), to serve Him with gladness (Ps. 1002)-these are all descriptions of obedience to the imperative uttered in and with the indicative of Yahweh's decision concerning Himself as the God of Israel and Israel as His people. They are descriptions of the human action which on its own level and in its own way repeats the divine action in specific human acts and conduct. And it is logical that the more the recognition gains ground that God's decision for His people proclaims and already includes His decision in favour of the whole world, the brighter becomes the prospect for a time when not only the whole house of Israel will serve God on His high mountain (Ez. 2040) but all nations and kingdoms will serve Him in the same freedom for what is so self-evident (Is. 1921, 566; Zeph. 39; Ps. 7211, 10223). The service demanded of man is the free selfexpression of the recognition that on the basis of God's gracious resolve and act they belong to Him alone and altogether, not as the sun and moon, nor as the mountains and sea, nor as animals and plants, but as men alone should belong to Him. It is in this sense that according to Is. 42 and 49-53 the Ebed YahwehENI03 serves, and that in the New Testament Paul describes his apostolic activity as that of a bond-servant (80VAOS-) of Jesus Christ (Rom. 11 and passim). The specific cultic form of service, namely, that of the priests and Levites in the Old Testament which is denoted by the terms AaTpEvELV and AELTOVpYELv EN 104 in the New, is, of course, from the very first the centre and climax of this action in relationship to God, but only as its most concrete expression at the point where it is a matter of human choice ENI03 EN104

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and decision in relation to true worship. In this sense Paul again can understand his work in the service of the Gospel as a free continuation of what was done in the tabernacle and temple in the Old Testament, and therefore as a AaTpEta (Rom. 19) or AELTovpyta ENI05 (Phil. 217) in which his congregations could sometimes be seen to have an indirect part (Phil. 230). In the New Testament, however, the concept is given a new importance and urgency by the fact that the Lord Himself, who in the Old Testament is alwaysthe One whom men must serve in view of what He is and does for them, now appears as Himself the Servant. He, the promised Son of Man, and therefore according to Dan. 7 the King of the last time, does not come to be served but to serve, and He does indeed serve in the fullest sense, giving His life a ransom for many (Mt. 2028). He veils and unveils His glory as in His action and passion He fulfils the quiet, humble and therefore most impressive picture of the Ebed Yahweh (Mt. 1 217f.). "Whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? Is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth" (Lk. 2227). It is surely worth noting that in the Fourth Gospel the story of the Last Supper is replaced by that of the foot-washing. The material message is the same, but how emphatically the latter emphasises the fact that the service of Christ is His true power and majesty and therefore the grace by which man receives his life!-the revealed grace of God which was already the secret of the Old Testament, though operative then only in a vertical movement from above. In the New, however, it has really come down into the depths and manifested itself there, becoming itself service in accordance with this end of its way. The action of God which absolutely precedes all human action and therefore human service is that He has placed Himself wholly and unreservedly in the service of man as revealed and effectual in the sacrifice ofjesus. This change is denoted linguistically by the fact that the terms oovAEta, AaTpEta, and AELTovpyta ENI06 here recede into the background and the word oLaKovta ENI07 is set more strongly and concretely in the foreground because on the self-evident presupposition of the service of Godthe objective genitive now being taken as a subjective-it includes service among men and for them. What does it mean to serve jesus the Lord? To follow Him, is the answer given in jn. 1226; and this obviously means to follow His way of service, of the total service which in relation to the world in which it is rendered may include the surrender of life itself and must certainly include the readiness for it. Those who serve Him by following in this way, His Father "willhonour." To servejesus (Rom. 1418, 1618; Col. 324), and therefore to serve "the living and true God" (1 Thess. 19), to "serve him acceptably with reverence and godly fear" (Heb. 1228), includes the reciprocal service that each should render the other (Gal. 513; 1 Pet. 410) in submission "one to another in the fear of God" (Eph. 521). It thus excludes what could not be excluded directly on the Old Testament view, namely, any disputing for precedence on the part of those who serve God: "Yeknow that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister" (Mt. 2025f.; 2311). It is in this way alone that one becomes a JLLJLTJT~~ of God (Eph. 51), a avvEpyosENI08 of the kingdom (Col. 411). Therefore in the New Testament, too. God demands service from man as an action consequent upon the fact that he belongs to God on the basis of what God does. But why is this action service? Could not man, assured of the grace of God and himself electing as God's elect, will to correspond to the divine action by presuming to act as lord? Why is it that Israel constantly failed to understand, or constantly ENI05 EN106 ENI07 ENI08

worship and service slavery, worship ... service ministry imitators of God, a fellow worker

3. The Active Life forgot, that it was summoned to the service of God, and therefore not to existence as a masterful, autonomous people? Why is it that its consciousness of election and calling was a constant snare and temptation to apostasy from the service of God to the freely selected service of other gods? The New Testament closes the door in this direction by its witness that God Himself acts and is revealed as a Servant, and in this way as the Lord, in the person of Him who made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant (Phil. 27). To belong to Him, and to perform human action in this relationship, means eo ipso and per seEN 109 to take His yoke upon oneself (Mt. 1129), i.e., to serve and not to rule with Him, in His discipleship, according to His example and in correspondence with His action, and to do so, not in a self-chosen way which might well be a secret path of domination, but in participation in His commission and therefore among men and in the service of men. This is the criterion and test whether it is really the service of God, whether man is really obedient in His active life, whether in his own choice he is really responding to the divine choice and not going his own way and living for himself under the pretext of a self-chosen service.

What does serving mean if service is to be the action for which man is sanctified, called and determined by the command of God? It is obvious that if the command is really to this effect he is called from the isolation and selfsufficiency of a life for life's sake. There is still a place for gratitude that he may live. There is still a place for respect for the generous loan which the Creator willed to make and still makes to His creature. But more is demanded than the expression of this respect. The new element is that he is shown the purpose of his life and commanded to orientate himself accordingly. Human life participates in the freedom of all God's creatures to the extent that it does not have its aim in itself and cannot therefore be lived in selfconcentration and self-centredness, but only in a relationship which moves outwards and upwards to another. All God's creatures exist in a relationship of this kind. None exists for itself. None is self-sufficient. None can justify itself. None possesses meaning or purpose in itself. Each stands in need of another. Each exists only as another stands in need of it. The command of God the Creator which summons man to the active life always includes the fact that it places him in this general order of the creature and thus calls him out of himself. And if he is obedient to it, if his action is service, it always includes the general fact that he looks and strives beyond himself, that he actualises his existence in his relationship to another, that he is thus integrated into the order of all creatures, and that he therefore participates at his own place and in his own way in the freedom of every creature. The specific freedom of human life, however, is that its meaning and aim are not to be found simply within creaturely existence. The external other in relationship to and in orientation upon which human life is to be lived is not merely this or that neighbouring creature or complex of creatures which it needs and which need it in return. Nor is it merely the totality of the creaturely cosmos whose structure and history include at some point the meaning and purpose of human life, and to whose meaning and purpose the structure and ENI09

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history of human life are indispensable. This is all true enough. But human life does not exhaust itself in any relationship to other creatures, nor in a relationship to the totality of creation. No creature can satisfy or justify it, nor have for it decisive meaning and purpose. Even the universe as a whole cannot do so. The other in relation to which human life is to be actively lived is indeed the fellow-creature, but it is not this alone. It may be allowed that this is basically true not only of man but of all creatures, and indeed of the entire creaturely cosmos. But this mystery of creaturely existence is revealed in man. It is revealed in him in the fact that he is summoned by the command of God to the active life and therefore beyond himself. When he is called to action and therefore to service, it is not merely the closed circle of his individual being in the creaturely world which is burst wide open. What breaks forth and is revealed when man is summoned to the active life by the command of God is the true need of every creature for another, and the profound ultimate dissatisfaction with every relationship between creature and creature, as also with the relationship between the individual creature and the creaturely cosmos as a whole. The true outside and beyond is now declared in relation to which all the relationships between creature and creature are constantly moving antithetically in ever widening circles and finally within a supreme circle. The true "wholly other" in distinction from every partial and relative other now comes upon the scene-the other which has the power to satisfy the creature as a partner, the authority to justify him as ajudge, the reality, majesty and dignity to give him meaning and purpose and to satisfy his needs. In what happens to man there is disclosed the other with which the whole world is confronted. It may well be said that in the free act of human obedience the cosmos discloses its limitation but also the fact that it is upheld and governed. It discloses, indeed, its basis and hope, and what we might rightly describe as the grandeur of creaturely existence. This is what makes the free act of human obedience, the service of man, a factor and event which is quite unique but which is significant for the whole cosmos, so that it is breathlessly expected by the whole cosmos and welcomed with joyous relief. We do not press on too fast, nor are we attempting a short cut, if we at once try to define the outside and beyond, the true and proper other, the genuine counterpart, which is displayed to us, in a way which is typical for the mystery of all creation, in the active life of man understood as the service required of him. For it is surely obvious, and in a general way true, that we should introduce the name of God in this connexion. Where man is called to the free act of obedience, there can be no doubt that he himself, and in his person the whole of creation, is confronted by God. God is indeed the genuine Counterpart which alone can finally and primarily satisfy man and all creation as such. Far too often, however, this has been said in so general and therefore unconvincing a manner that we cannot be content to make the word "God" our final, or perhaps even our basic, term. Far too often this word is used simply as a pseudonym for the limitation of all human understanding, whether of self or

3. The Active Life the world. Far too often what is meant by it is something quite different, namely, the unsubstantial, unprofitable and fundamentally very tedious magnitude known as transcendence, not as a genuine counterpart, nor a true other, nor a real outside and beyond, but as an illusory reflection of human freedom, as its projection into the vacuum of utter abstraction. And it is characteristic of this transcendence that it neither has a specific will, nor accomplishes a specific act, nor speaks a specific word, nor exercises a specific power and authority. It can neither bind man effectively nor effectively liberate him. It can neither justify him nor satisfy him. It cannot be for his life either a clear meaning or a distinct purpose. Its high-priests and prophets usually interrupt those who dare to say such things, telling them that it is only in the form of "mythologisation" that we can say anything definite, i.e., that we can ascribe to it a person and form, an ability to act and speak, or even specific words and acts, so that we are better advised not to make any attempts in this direction. Transcendence as they see it cannot mean anything more than that behind and above and before all human action there is this open sphere, this abyss as it were, into which every man is destined to plunge headlong, whether wise or foolish, whether blessed or judged, whether to salvation or perdition. And the only sure and certain result which accrues from contemplating this spectre seems to be the rather barren law of toleration, i.e., of refraining from absolutising, and therefore in fact of avoiding all positive statements concerning its binding content and direction. In the present context we need not join issue with this standpoint and its representatives. We must certainly insist, however, that when we ourselves introduce the term "God" at this point, we necessarily have something totally different in view.

The introduction of the term "God" is not an abuse of this name, but meaningful and helpful, ifin respect of it we think of what is attested by Holy Scripture concerning God's speech and action. God is the One whose name and cause are borne by Jesus Christ. Hence there is no question of divinity in the abstract as suprahuman and supracosmic being. Holy Scripture knows nothing of this divinity. To be sure, the God of Holy Scripture is superior to man and the world as the Lord. But He has also bound Himself to man and the world in creating them. God is here introduced to us in the action in which He is engaged, not merely in His superiority over the creature, but also in His relationship to it. What is presented to us is the faithfulness of this God and His living approach to the creature. There is set before us His specific coming, acting and speaking in the creaturely world with the intention of asserting, protecting and restoring His right to the creature, and therefore the creature's own right and honour. In other words, our concern is with what Holy Scripture calls the coming of His kingdom from heaven to earth. And from this centre our concern is also generally with the sovereign .action by which He sustains and prepares the cosmos for the coming of His kingdom and directs it to it. That is to say, we have to do with what has always been called His fatherly providence. In this interrelated action God is majestically and unconditionally superior to man and every creature and the whole cosmos. But He is also near

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to the cosmos and bound to it, Himself becoming man and therefore a creature at the heart and climax of this action. Between this God and man, as this God demands man's obedience and man renders it to this God, there is realised the unique fact and event of the active life in which man, and in him the creature as such, encounters the wholly and true Other as the genuine Counterpart who satisfies and justifies him and in relation to whom he is called out of and beyond himself, and may thus discover and actualise his own freedom. But why is all this so only when the word "God" has this concrete content and our concern is thus with the God whose name and cause are borne by Jesus Christ? A first and simple answer is that even in His essence, and especially in the speech and action in which this finds expression, this God is not a God who is strange to man, but One who in Jesus Christ is from the very first his God. To be sure, He is his God, and it is as such, in His eternal majesty, that He is the Other, the Counterpart of man, who can call him out of and beyond Himself in that incomparable way, bending him to His right and claiming him for His glory. But He is also his God, concerned in the innermost depths of His deity to meet his need, to satisfy him, to secure his right and to establish his glory. This leads us, however, to the further answer that the action and work of this God, in the business of His kingdom and the sway of His universal providence, are concerned primarily and directly if typically with man. The cause of God in all its austere deity is from all eternity and in its historical fulfilment the cause of man. Hence this God has a voice and Word which are addressed to man and which man can hear. When he is called by this Word of God to the active life, he is thereby set before the clear meaning and distinct purpose of his life, and he thus becomes a free creature. But what is the purpose and meaning of this call of God? The answer to this question again sets everything in a new light. It is only one aspect of the matter that man is the object of the call of the God who acts and speaks inJesus Christ, that he is the one to whom it applies and against whom God vindicates His right and thus secures that of man too, that he experiences mercy through the action of this God. It might well be asked, of course, whether there can be any other-beyond the fact that, when the call of this God is heard and accepted, it sets man in freedom and satisfies his deepest need by placing him in the active life. But this obviously gives rise to a further consideration. There is now disclosed what is needed in ethics to fill out the concept of the active life. In itself, to say that man in obedience is set before the meaning and aim of his life, and that he thus becomes a free creature, is an incomplete description of the reason and purpose of life. If the God who summons him and whom he obeys is the One whose name and cause are borne by Jesus Christ, the application is certainly to man, and what is at issue is undoubtedly the assertion of God's right and glory against him and therefore the guaranteeing of his own right and glory. But the freedom which God procures for him, the meaning and purpose which He gives to his life, the satisfaction which he may derive from

I 3. The Active Life the active life corresponding to the divine call, cannot be understood without a backward reference to the name and cause of God. It is not in vain that, in order to take man to Himself, this God has Himself become an active man in Jesus Christ and therefore the Brother of all men. It is not in vain that He has acted and spoken from heaven on earth as an active man among men and therefore for men. But this means neither more nor less than that, at the very point where man himself is called to freedom by the will and work of God, we find that man is also summoned, mobilised and thrown into action in participation in the doing of this will and work. If he is summoned in Jesus Christ, then the freedom to which he is called and the active life corresponding to this summons cannot be a cul-de-sacENIIO in which he is indeed active and free, but free and active only in his own cause and as determined for a self-centred life. If God has become the Brother of man inJesus Christ to call him to freedom, then man has become the brother of God in Jesus Christ, and as such he cannot adopt an attitude of hostility, neutrality or passivity in relation to the name and cause of God. His active life has been given a definite direction, a concrete meaning and content, by the fact that he has been set free for it inJesus Christ. He cannot, then, conceal from himself the fact that he and his activity as man are claimed for the continuation of the divine work to which he owes his freedom, that they are required in fellowship with the man Jesus Christ, in His discipleship, and therefore in fellowship with God in the service of His kingdom and fatherly providence. God is not too superior to make use of man's active life in His service, nor is man too mean to be claimed for this service. How man misjudges God and himself, how he mistakes the mercy shown him in Jesus Christ, if he tries to deny that he is required and claimed for this service! How can he do otherwise than participate in the penetration to freedom, as it has taken place in the man Jesus Christ, by becoming a disciple of this man and allowing himself to be claimed by Him for an active life under His leadership and according to His example? It is to activity in the doing of His will and work that God calls him by His command. The obedience required of him is that he should be prepared for this active participation and that he should thus utilise the freedom which he is given in a way which alone corresponds to its nature. We are careful to say that active participation is implied when man is called to the service of the kingdom and fatherly providence of God. This does not mean that he becomes a co-creator, co-saviour or co-regent in God's activity. It does not mean that he becomes a kind of co-God. It simply means that in its place and within its limits his creaturely activity can take the form of correspondence to the divine activity. Man neither is nor can be a second Jesus Christ. He can be obedient to God only as he followsJesus Christ, so that in his place and within his limits he with his action is the witness of Jesus Christ and ENI 10

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therefore of God's will and work. He can be active for God only as the recipient of the creaturely freedom given by God and constantly given back to Him, not as its author or owner, let alone in the majesty of the divine freedom itself. He can never satisfy nor justify himself, nor can he ever be his own meaning and goal, in virtue of his active participation. He can never accomplish the will and work of God by himself and in the place of God. His freedom, activity and achievements will always be very different from the freedom, activity and achievements of God. His activity will never be done of itself in God's name or for His cause, but only in virtue of the fact that God wills to draw it up into His own activity and Himself to give it the character of activity done in His name and for His cause. His activity, therefore, can never have the radiance of his own glory but only of the glory of God in which it shares as God wills to recognise and accept, to bless, fructify and adorn it as something done in obedience to Himself. In faith, but only in faith, he can be confident that his activity receives this recognition and is thus pleasing to God. As man is summoned to this active participation, he will accept the strict and salutary distinction between God and man. Since the summons comes in Jesus Christ, it is inevitable that this service should be rendered to the will and work of God in the most humble and unassuming and sober subordination, in which the boundaries between the Creator and the creature are respected and not violated. In this way alone can we understand the unheard of exaltation which comes upon man as he is summoned in Jesus Christ to the service of God's will and work. It is, of course, a miracle of the divine mercy that within the limits of his creaturely world there should be an activity which stands in relation to the action of the Creator and which therefore points beyond these limits-a creaturely freedom which as such can attest and reflect God's own freedom, indicate God's kingdom and fatherly providence, and therefore serve God. And it is the miracle of miracles that man may be genuinely active as a subject in this sense where God acts and speaks, i.e., that God wills to use and claim him in this sense. This is, however, the astounding yet true mystery of the active human life lived in obedience. It is a mystery because it can be true only as a factor and event coming from God. It is astounding because everything seems to argue against its possibility and reality. Yet it is true because inJesus Christ it is revealed and commanded that it should continually become real. We have now reached the point where we can turn to the first and decisive concretion of the command. If our preliminary reflections are correct, the basic form of the active life of obedience understood and affirmed as service of the cause of God is man's direct or indirect co-operation in the fulfilment of the task of the Christian community. This statement may seem to be intolerably narrow, extremely presumptuous and even alien and impractical. But it is unavoidable. The command of God the Creator regarding the active life has a centre, apex and range. Ifwe are to comprehend it at this point, and therefore in its basic form, we cannot ignore the fact that the internal basis of creation is the divine covenant of grace. This 154

3. The Active Life means, however, that the command of God the Creator in relation to man's active life has its first goal in his action as that of the covenant-partner of God, and therefore of the responsibly active member of the Christian community. Obedient creaturely activity is properly, in its basic form, the action of this man, i.e., the man ordained to it. Now it is true that, if this is so, countless numbers of men, indeed, the overwhelming majority, appear at first sight to be precluded from keeping the commandment of God in its original sense, i.e., from activity in the basic form of the obedient active life. Either the Christian community in general, or at least its task, might in the first instance be strange or even unknown to them. At all events, it might hardly or perhaps never have entered their mind that something like their co-operation in the fulfilment of its task is any concern of theirs. We have to take this fact into account. How could it really be otherwise? The factor or event of the step into freedom in which we have recognised the essence of the active life is not adapted to become a universal experience in human society, if only for the reason that it is a matter of service. Is it surprising that in its true form this should first be operative only in the life of one of the smallest human minorities? Is it not inevitable that only real Christians, i.e., those who are really participating in the fulfilment of the task of the Christian community, should know what they must will and thus be able to will what they know, that only they should understand and undertake the service of God's cause as genuinely free human activity?We may surely put the simple question how all those who are not Christians are to derive the knowledge and volition necessary for this. And it is surely a likely assumption that in the first instance real Christians will constitute no more than a dwindling minority among the rest of men. If this is narrow, we are told that the gate is strait and the way narrow theological

ethics obviously cannot

try to make a universal

(Mt.

713f.),

and

out of what is in fact a particular.

Nevertheless, we have been careful to speak of the Christian community, in which alone the command can be observed in its basic form, as only in the first instance a small minority with its action. We are certainly

not to expect that it can or should ever become

the majority. On

the other hand, its ranks are never closed but always open. It does not have to be small. It can increase,

and always continues

to do so. No man is necessarily

no last who might not be found

among

excluded

from it. There

the first. And those who co-operate

are

with the first

should do all they can to see that the last may be called and the few multiply. The minority not set there for its own sake but for the sake of the majority. Hence while to let oneself be driven into this narrow there can be the widest orientation If this is presumptuous, ous and thankless belong

is

worth

since it is only from this corner

that

and operation.

the active human

that humanly

corner,

it is ultimately

speaking

life in this basic form is so difficult, inconspicuno one is in fact to be pitied if he cannot

at first

to this minority, nor to be envied if he really must. After all, the active life has other

less burdensome

and in their own way no less worthy forms. We can be genuinely

hands and under

the protection

of God, and we can truly participate

other forms than that of real Christianity. the latter as if there were something shall be very strange

Christians

We shall certainly

alluring

not presume

in it from the human

if we do not first face the question

155

in human

in the

freedom,

in

to participate

in

standpoint.

Above all we

who are real Christians,

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i.e., those actually involved in the task of the Christian community. For surely every conceivable definition of real Christians-and the more so the more exact it is-is first ajudgment upon those who really wish to be Christians in earnest. Is it not inevitable that those who belong to the minority should have to acknowledge that they are quite unworthy to do so and thus exclude themselves from it? Can there really be a true Christian who does not have to remember that the first might also be last, so that at best he can only believe that he believes? Are not Christians the very people to realise that even in the best of lives our own activity is worthless, and that none, therefore, may presume to call himself by the name of Christ? Is it not this recognition which finally distinguishes them sharply and palpably from others? Can Christian presumption thrive except as most unchristian presumption? If, finally, this is alien, no objection can be raised if we try to understand and describe the activity required of members of the Christian community as something which is in the first instance strange to the world. The Christian, of course, must first experience this in his own existence, which is alwayssecular or worldly also. Neither at a first nor second nor even third glance do any of us think of specifically Christian activity as constituting the active life. Such activity can never establish itself as real activity among all the other things that men plan and do and accomplish. In the first instance it must always seem to be a foreign body in the structure and history of human deeds, achievements and modes of conduct. In the first instance it must always seem to consist in a hopeless effort to swim against the current. This accords with the fact that it is so difficult, inconspicuous and thankless. But perhaps it is part of its essential nature as service in the concrete and concentrated sense that this should be so. The Christian as a man must alwaysfind it difficult to realise that he may and must serve. Hence he can hardly fail to see that this is extremely hard for others. Yet for all its strangeness the activity required of him is perhaps in fact the most secular of all activities: more secular than the labour of the artisan, farmer, industrialist or merchant; more secular than the making of machines, building of bridges, waging of war or conclusion of peace in which men are otherwise engaged; more secular because here, in what the Christian community does in fulfilment of its task, there takes place the very thing for the sake and in the context of which everything else must happen, which truly binds the world together and which is the ultimate goal of all else that is done, even though active men do not for the most part realise the fact. For may it not be that fundamentally world history is really Church history? At all events, this is what the Bible says, and it is unquestionably true so long as we do not think of the Church history of the text-books but of that which God knows as and because it is the work of His overruling of the Church. If service is the true and essential character of human activity,and if this character is displayed where it is rendered to the cause of God, why should it not be practical supremely and properly as the activity of the Christian community? Is not this activity supremely practical, and therefore in no sense alien in the highest and truest sense?

In the last resort, however, the point at issue is not the production of a good or better defence against the suspicions and reproaches mentioned. The statement which we have made is intrinsically necessary and unavoidable. When we ask concerning the human activity corresponding directly to the divine activity and therefore answering immediately to the divine summons, then in the foreground, characterised, determined and controlled by the latter, there stands what Israel had to do ante Christum natum ENIII and what it is the business of the EN III

before Christ's birth

3. The Active Life Christian community to do post Christum natumENl12. This service is the active human life confronting and corresponding to the centre of divine action, i.e., the coming of God's kingdom. This service is the creaturely counterpart to the great invasion of the history of man and the cosmos in which God has proved His faithfulness as the Creator and resolved and accomplished the reconciliation of the world to Himself. All else that God wills and does as the Creator and Lord of man and the world derives from this centre, refers back to it and revolves around it. In this centre it has its meaning as a work of His mercy. In this centre it is calledJesus Christ, taking place in His work and in Him being discernible and comprehensible in its totality. If God in His action confronts man and the world; if He is thus the basis of all human freedom and the implied creaturely freedom; if the act of this freedom is the entry of man into the service of this confrontation, of this causa DeiENl13, then the entry of man into this service, i.e., his active life, must first and decisively take place in his relation to the centre of this action and therefore in his relation to Jesus Christ. Here it has its name. Here it takes place truly and properly. Here the will of God has the form and outline in which it may be recognised elsewhere as His will. Here His Word becomes audible, articulate and intelligible. Here it is to be heard first in order that it may be heard elsewhere, demanding obedience and in its singularity distinguishable from all other words and voices. The divine action includes other spheres, and therefore the active life as man's obedient answer to it will exhibit other dimensions. But primarily and decisively it must have this dimension. Primarily and decisively it must stand in relation to this centre of the divine action, i.e., to this action in its capacity as the work of God's covenant and reconciliation, as His action of salvation as the Saviour. Hence the active life of man willed and demanded by God is primarily and decisively the active life of the community of Christ. To see this from the Bible, we must first consider the active life of Jesus Christ Himself. Attention has been called already to a fact which causes embarrassment to less clearsighted Christian ethics, namely, that the acts of Jesus have no direct connexion with cultural activity. This was not in any sense embarrassing to the New Testament witnesses. The life of the man Jesus as they perceived and attested it was neither indolent nor active only in the sense of pious contemplation. Especially inJohn's Gospel it is described as an operation and work in the light of God's work, and in relationship and even identity with it. "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work" Un. 434).

"My father worketh

hitherto,

and 1

work" Un. 517). "For the works that the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that 1 do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me" Un. 536). "I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work" Un. 94). "I have glorified thee on earth: 1 have finished the work which thou gavest me to do" Un. 174). Both in the Fourth Gospel and elsewhere, however, it is evident that this central, atoning and saving operation of God is His work as the Lord of the covenant of grace, which Jesus faces, by which He sees Himself governed and determined, and which He adopts and fulfils by His

ENl12 ENl13

after Christ's birth cause of God

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own Epya'Ea8uL EN114. His life becomes an active life par excellence inasmuch as it is orientated on this Word of God par excellence. Concretely, it consists quite simply in what is continually described in the summarised account of Acts as His proclamation of the kingdom by words and deeds. He fulfils the kerygma. This is the unassuming act of His life, surpassed only by the content of the kerygma, i.e., the coming of the kingdom as such in His suffering, death and resurrection. This simple thing is the human act in the supreme and most concrete sense. And it is to this act that He has called His disciples, thus calling them from all other work to follow Him. The parables in which He has compared them to labourers in the vineyard, servants ministering to their lord or stewards of the goods of others, and in which He exhorts them to fidelity as such, are full of realistic content. For the disciples, too, there must be Epya'Ea8uL ENllS, and a definite reward is promised. For them, however, it is a question of the EpyOV TOU 8EOUEN1l6, of work in His house and vineyard, in His field and harvest. And the action of God which they are called to serve has for them, too, its centre, meaning and concretion in the fact that it consists in the coming of His kingdom. Thus their service, which in relation to that ofjesus is one of witness at second-hand, will also consist essentially and decisivelyin the fulfilment of the kerygma. Their activityis determined and controlled by the dawning of the last time at the heart of time, as the limit of all human will and action, by God's visiting of His people in the crucifixion and resurrection ofjesus Christ. No other task is so urgent as that of spreading this news on earth, of making it known to all people that all may conform to it, of publishing it indeed to every creature. Everything else that man might will or do or accomplish fades beside this, moving out to the circumference and becoming a parergonENl17• But how they are energised in the doing of this one thing! How gigantic the active life of man appears in the light of the fact that for this work of discipleship, for the simple spreading of this news, no less capacity is required than that which must be granted and continually confirmed by God, byjesus and by the Holy Spirit. This task of the disciples, however, is the meaning of the active life of the Christian community which humanly speaking is established by their testimony. This community is the assembly or people of those whom God through jesus Christ has called with Him and for Him. They, too, are confronted by God's work as His atoning and saving work, not directly but through jesus Christ, not in isolation from but in conjunction with Him and therefore with one another, not for their own sake, notwithstanding the reward which they have certainly been promised and will indeed be given, but in obligation to Him and in Him to the causa DeiEN1l8• What is it that constitutes it this people among others? It is simply the fact that its members are aware of the coming of the kingdom as that which has already come, is now present and will one day be manifested in glory, and that they have thus been set in the active life as the community of the last time, that in this active life they may be witnesses, messengers, ambassadors and heralds of this comprehensive and radical alteration of the human and cosmic situation. They have not brought about this alteration. It has been accomplished apart from them in the death and resurrection ofjesus Christ as the act of God. They cannot contribute anything to it. But they exist and are called into freedom in order to announce it. No part of what has taken place, or will take place, at God's hands either is, was or will be their work. But God needs and claims them. The Epyov KVp{OV EN1l9 to be accomplished in their existence is that they should be the bearers of this announcement and therefore that in working working ENI 16 work of God ENI 17 secondary task ENII8 cause of God EN 119 wOlk of the Lord EN1l4

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3. The Active Life this sense, according to Mt. 513f., in the school of the apostles and in the discipleship ofjesus Christ Himself, they should be the salt of the earth, the light of the world, the city set on a hill that cannot be hid. The Christian community has no other task. We may see how simple and unassuming its task is. If God wills to use it to accomplish His own work through its labour, this is His affair. The Christian community can neither bring this about nor enforce it. It has no right to ask for successes. It has no more been commissioned to complete the great alteration than to accomplish or reveal it. It must simply hold itself in readiness for God. It must simply fulfil the duty to which it has been brought by the occurrence and revelation of this great alteration. Its only care is simply to see that the kerygma is constantly proclaimed by human agencies and constantly presented to the human capacity of comprehension. At all times and in every situation it will have its work cut out to do this. In doing it, both it and each individual Christian within it can and should live the active life in obedience.

When we put the service of the Christian community at the head of the concretions of the active life demanded by the command of God, we make four assumptions which are certainly to be found in the New Testament but which unfortunately are not to be seen so clearly, and sometimes not at all, in what is operative and visible as the Christian Church of a particular tradition and confession. This is not the place for a detailed proof of these assumptions, and therefore we can only mention them in the present context. 1. We assume that the Christian community or Church is a particular people, and therefore that it neither is nor can be identical with humanity or with a natural or historical segment of humanity, as, for example, a nation or the population of a certain territory or country. We assume that it alwaysrepresents a distinct antithesis to humanity as naturally and historically fashioned and to all the associated groupings. We thus assume that the numerical equation of Christianity, customary since the time of Constantine, with a supposed Christian West, rests on an error which, although it has not arisen without the permissive guidance of God and therefore to some purpose and profit, is still glaring and fatal, and can only result in the self-deception of the Christian community or Church and the hampering of its service. Since its Lord is no other than the One who rules over heaven and earth, it is in fact a peculiar people, assembled and to be assembled from all nations, and existing in dispersion among all nations with its special task and service. It is constituted by the imminent kingdom of God and not by any kind of great or small historical dominion. It has not to look to even the highest interests either of humanity or of this or that greater or smaller human group, but in conflict with humanity and all human groups, and for their salvation, it must serve the particular interest which God inJesus Christ both willed to take, and in His patience will alwaystake, in humanity. It cannot try to be the Church of the people, but only the Church for the people. Only in this sense can it be the "national" Church. 2. We assume that by the Christian community or Church is not meant an establishment or institution organised along specific lines, but the living people awakened and assembled byJesus Christ as the Lord for the fulfilment of a specific task. In obedience to its Lord this people may and must provide

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itself with particular institutions, rules, regulations and obligations. But these do not constitute the Christian community; they are themselves made by the Christian community. They are always, it is to be hoped, the best possible and yet changeable forms in which the Christian community is active and undertakes to perform its service. The Christian community does not live as these institutions subsist and are maintained and protected. It lives as it discharges its service to the kingdom of God in the changing, standing and falling of institutions. What it has to do must not be determined by its institutions; its institutions must be determined by what it has to do. 3. We assume that the Christian community or Church is in fact the people which has been constituted and given its commission by Jesus Christ its Lord and therefore by the coming kingdom. Its existence, therefore, is not an end in itself. Even the temporal and eternal reward which it has been promised for fulfilling its commission is something apart. It can and should look forward to this with gladness. But the meaning and purpose of its service do not consist in the receiving of it. Nor does it serve in order to satisfy its religious needs, to practise its piety, to live out its religious emotions, and thus to deepen and enrich its own life and possibly to improve or even transform world conditions. Nor does it serve in order to gain the favour of God and finally to attain to everlasting bliss. It serves because the causa DeiEN120 is present inJesus Christ, and because, come what may and irrespective of the greatness or smallness of the result, it imperiously demands the service of its witness. 4. We assume that the Christian community or Church is the people which as such is unitedly and therefore in all its members summoned to this service. Two common distinctions are herewith abolished. The first is the recognition, far too readily accepted as self-evident especially in many of the Reformation confessions, that the Christian community comprises many dead as well as living members, i.e., Christians only in appearance. The truth is that not merely some or many but all members of the Christian community stand under the sad possibility that they might not be real Christians, and yet that all and not merely some or many are called from death to life and therefore to the active life of service. It is quite impossible, and we have no authority from the New Testament, to admit into the concept of the Christian community a distinction between real and unreal, useful and useless members. That all are useless but that all are used as such is said to all who are gathered into this people. Again, the distinction is also abolished between a responsible part of the community specially called to the service of the Church and a much larger nonresponsible part, i.e., between "clergy" and "laity," officebearers and ordinary Christians. The whole community and therefore all its members are specifically called to this service and are therefore responsible. All are mere "laity" in relation to their Lord, and therefore in truth, yet all are "clergy" in the same relation and therefore in truth. Admittedly, the service is inwardly ordered, so EN 120

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3. The Active Life that there are within it different callings, gifts and commissions. Nevertheless, the community is not divided by this ordering into an active part and a passive, a teaching Church and a listening, Christians who have office and those who have not. Strictly, no one has an office; all can and should and may serve; none is ever "off duty." We may compress these four assumptions into the well-known words of I Pet. 29fo: "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy." We may immediately add to this saying the exposition and application of the threefold office of jesus Christ given under Qu. 32 of the Heidelberg Catechism: "Why art thou called a Christian? Because through faith I am a member of Christ and partake of His anointing, that I may confess His name, offer myself to Him as a living sacrifice, and with a clear conscience wrestle in this life against sin and the devil, hereafter to reign with Him in eternity over all creatures." If only the Protestant conception of the Church had been worked out and practised along these lines!

What is to be said concerning the service of the members of the Christian community in the light of these assumptions can to a large extent be said only in conflict with the Church as we now see it. This does not mean, however, that rebus sic stantibusEN121 it has no more than academic interest and is of no practical value. For the best thing to do against the res sic stantesEN122 and on behalf of an overdue and far more comprehensive reformation of the Church than that of the 16th century, is to see to it that the active life of the Christian, as obviously demanded by these assumptions, is again seen and understood and then in some measure lived. The better Church arrives with better Christians, i.e., in and with every member who lets himself be freed from false ideas of the Church and activated in the sense of the true Church. Let us come to the point. What is meant by co-operation in the service of the Christian community? 1. It first means something very simple which includes all that follows, namely, the affirmation of its existence by attachment to it, and therefore the action plainly expressed in the first decades and centuries of Christendom in the fact that a man presented himself for baptism, acknowledging himself, and allowing himself to be accepted by the community, as one who had behind him the death of Jesus Christ as the end of the old aeon and therefore of his own old life, and before him the resurrection and return of Jesus Christ as the revelation of the new heaven and the new earth and therefore of his own new life. In the first instance the Christian community serves the cause of God by the mere fact that to the amazement of the world and not least to its own astonishment-for it is indeed a work of the Holy Spirit-it is continually present in EN121 EN122

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different men of different times, nations, origin and type. Since it has no reason for existence apart from the kingdom of God, the call and Word of the Lord and the power of the Holy Ghost-for nothing else either could or can establish it as the Christian community-it attests the kingdom of God by the simple fact that in faithfulness or unfaithfulness, in strength or weakness, it continues to be. But its continued existence also implies the constant "adding" of men to it (Ac. 241). Seen from below, this means that in obedience to the Word of God and under the compulsion of the Holy Spirit they wish to enter into and belong to it in recognition of the change in the times and in their own lives. What God wants of man as the active life is what these men do, namely, the basic act of their presence. To enter into and belong to the Christian community is to step out of blindness and neutrality into the kingdom of God. Those who carry out their decision to join declare that they are aware of the kingdom of God, not as a spectacle which they may attend as spectators, but as an action by which they themselves are summoned to action. They bear witness that it concerns them, and that it does so in such a way that they must confess its occurrence by their own existence. This is certainly an inner decision of faith. It is a matter of their souls, which are won and torn away from a mode' of existence which they can only understand as existence in darkness now that they are brought to the light. But they themselves are their souls, for their souls are the souls of their bodies. It is as total men, and as such in relation to the whole cosmos, that they "are made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light" by the Father "who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son" (Col. 112fo). The inward, as that of faith, at once and as such becomes the outward, i.e., the physical movement which corresponds to the spiritual. This movement, corresponding to what takes place between God and man, consists in the relation of man to the cosmos, in his accession to those who must acknowledge that they have become aware of the kingdom of God and that God's action concerns them. He must step out of his neutrality, out of his position as a spectator which perhaps seemed possible for the moment, and with these others he must appear on the stage, not as an actor, for there is only One who truly acts, but as a necessary member of the chorus which accompanies the action of the One who acts, participating with understanding and therefore differently from the rest of the world, opposing the world and yet also addressing it. For his decision of faith necessarily includes-how else could it be the decision of the whole man?-this public and binding committal. It includes the fact that he does not merely bind himself privately but that in accordance with his private conviction he does so publicly, allowing himself to be addressed, together with all those who are in the same position, in the words which Peter was once unwilling to accept: "And thou also wast with Jesus of Nazareth" (Mk. 1467.) With this commitment a man fulfils the affirmation of the existence of the Christian community and thus partakes in the service which basically and COill-

3. The Active Life prehensively consists quite simply in its existence, i.e., in the fact that it is a reality and as such a witness to the coming kingdom at the heart of the cosmos and world history great and small, differing as a witness to this cause, the causa DeiEN123, from all other reality with its very different witness. With this commitment he stands surety that this community does really exist and that its service is really rendered. And this precisely is the active life to which he and all men are called by God. There is nothing less obvious or self-evident. It is genuinely an act, the epitome of stepping out into freedom, when a man does this in obedience to God, not merely once but continually, as is essential in this matter. Just as the Christian community has no other raison d'etreEN124 apart from the kingdom and its manifestation, so it is with the affirmation of its existence by the individual when he attaches himself to it. All other steps or actions may be based on other reasons. This does not mean that they are wrong. They may still be ordered by God. They may be taken or performed in obedience to Him. For we may count on the universal providence and sovereignty of God genuinely offering good reasons for all kinds of other good steps and actions. Even Christians, since they live in the world as well as the community, may find and have reasons for steps and actions of this type. We shall revert to this when we come to speak of work. But there is only one reason why a man should associate himselfwith the Christian community and truly adhere to it. For this step can be undertaken only in faith. Hence faith as such is the only motive for it. And faith rests on his recognition of the kingdom of God: a recognition which not only glimpses the change of the times accomplished and to be revealed in Jesus Christ, but also sees it to be a turning point in his own life; a recognition which plainly displays in his life a before and after, this world and the next, a being in darkness and a being in light; a recognition by which he finds himself wholly set under the judgment of God and wholly commended to the grace of God. It is in the light of this recognition, in the power of the Holy Spirit, that a man believes. This is a strange happening. If there is indeed an action of which faith alone can be the motive, to which man cannot be compelled by any other motives, which would not be this action at all but only its appearance if done from other motives; and if this action is coincident with joining the Christian community, this is a very strange action. We have to remember that it is an action in which no decisive part can be played by all the other human concerns, interests, obligations and ties, which may be very beautiful, noble and necessary, which may have their own dignity on the basis of faith, and to which man may be commanded to do justice by faith itself. It is an action which can have its basis only in faith as such-an action from which man cannot derive anything and with which he cannot achieve anything except as he must do what God commands. How much he can indeed derive and achieve by being a witness to the EN123 EN124

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kingdom of God in this simple yet so very strangely motivated action! Yet how strait is the gate and how narrow the way! What a bridge he has to cross and then demolish! Nor is it legitimate nor worth while to widen the gate, to broaden the way, to refuse to cross the bridge, or, having crossed it, to leave it prudently standing. To the degree that membership of the Christian community is cheapened and joining it motivated, commended or executed for other reasons, it cannot be the affirmation of the existence of the congregation, of the people which can be this people only as the peculiar people of the Lord, only as the active human answer to the coming of the kingdom of this people. In this degree it is obedience only in part or not at all. But if there is a human action which, as an obedient step into freedom in answer to the call of God, fulfils the essence of human action and the active life, it is the simple but very strange action, which is not at all cheap but which risks and ventures everything as in the purchase of the pearl of great price (Mt. 1345f.) , of associating oneself with the community of the coming kingdom and of thus confirming in oneself the necessity of the reality of this community on earth in order that testimony may be borne to Jesus Christ. In other words, the obedient action of man consists basically in joining the community. We have only to grasp the range of this step to see that the life of man cannot be more active than in this simplest basic form. Again, joining and belonging to the community is itself this obedient action which can be performed only in the obedience of faith-no more, no less, no other. All else is already included in this. The fact that men have belonged to the community in this action is the thing which from the human standpoint has always made it the community of God and qualified and equipped it for service. By this fact alone, from the human standpoint, has it continued to exist as that which it essentially is-the ecclesia semper mansuraEN125. 2. The community, however, exists primarily in an inner history in which it must continually present and fashion itself afresh in relation to its ministry of witness. In its very origin it is no mere collection of individuals resting on the fancies and shaped by the whims and predilections of those united in it. On the contrary, it is an assembly convened by its Lord and orientated on Him. This is the character which it must not lose, but continually take on afresh in new forms and aspects, attending always to its Lord's directions as these may vary yesterday and to-day, here and there, in accordance with time and place and occasion and the different forms of service. In this inner history it has constantly to show itself to be what it is, preparing, maintaining and adapting itself for the service which it has to render. For the individual Christian, then, co-operation in its service means participation in this inner history, in its fashioning and shaping, in its upbuilding as continually required and demanded. The community cannot, of course, allow itself to be built up, or build itself up, without immediately devoting itself to its ministry. On the other hand, it canEN125

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3. The Active Life not perform its ministry without being simultaneously engaged in its own upbuilding. Even for the individual Christian, therefore, there can be no co-operation in its ministry without co-operation in its upbuilding. No one can seek to have a part only in the outgoing meaning and task of the community in the world around. Each is responsible for what the community either is or is not in itself, for what it has or has not, for its health or sickness. Each in his particular adherence to it is called upon to observe that which is required of it as holy and salutary, or at least suggested to it as promising, in respect of its own being, as also to take note of what is either forbidden to it as profane and unhelpful, or shown to be dangerous, in this regard. Thus each according to his own place and time and opportunity is summoned to be obedient and submissive to this command and prohibition. The inner history of the community demands the conscious participation of each of its members. This history includes the history of the member, so that by his participation his own history also takes place in some form or other. Each must reflect that passivity in relation to the upbuilding of the community necessarily means passivity in respect of his own Christian life, just as passivity in the latter inevitably carries with it a slowing to a standstill of the activity of the community. None can first wait for others in respect of personal participation in the upbuilding of the community. None can neglect this because of the omissions or mistakes of which others are seen to be guilty. Each with his own contribution, given or withheld, good or bad, is directly responsible for the whole to the common Lord. It should be constantly pondered that the responsibility of each for his own particular action is of such tremendous weight and importance because it derives from his faith, and his faith from his perception of the kingdom of God. He too, like the community, exists in virtue of this kingdom. This gives to his responsibility for the existence and inner history of the community an eschatological urgency. It prevents him-"Little children, it is the last time" (1 In. 218)-from sinking into a state of sleep or daydreaming. We shall now try to give a more detailed account of this responsibility. ( 1) A first concern is for the unity of the community. The Lord holds the community together. Again, recollection of the service in which it must be united ought to keep it together. Yet the Christians assembled in it are men, and as such they are always on the point of dispersal. Even in the apostolic congregations there seems to have been a paradoxical ratio in this respect. The more intensely, power fully and richly a congregation felt itself endowed and moved by the one Spirit of the one Lord, the more the urge increased among those united in it to diverge and even to collide. That which is truly divine, i.e., the Holy Ghost, obviously cannot suffer to be possessed and used by men. When this is attempted, by an explosive force which sooner or later takes effect, it is transformed into something demonic. With the resultant disruption, division and schism, there is imminent danger on both sides of heresy, i.e., of listening to the alien directions of other lords and of false building

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according to their plans. And behind heresy there is the even greater danger of apostasy, i.e., of the conscious surrender to the dominion of these other lords. When this occurs, the service of the community is of little avail. The salt has lost its savour; the light is hid under a bushel. The apostles had good reason to issue their urgent warnings against schism and against that which gives rise to it, for with schism the community enters the declivitous path on which it can only increasingly lose its capacity for the service for which it has been commissioned, and therewith its ratio essendiEN126. But there is only one remedy against treading this path. The demonisation of the divine element, which is the source of schism, must be prevented at all costs. The attempt to possess and use this element must be resolutely renounced by the Christian. More positively, the recognition of the majesty of the one Lord and His Spirit must be firmly set before the community and all its members. Once it breaks through, this recognition, namely, that He possesses Christians and not they Him, guarantees the unity of the community. It thus guarantees its purity, its inviolability as such. It is, then, the capacity for the service incumbent upon it. But how is this recognition to break through if it does not derive from the life of its individual members and their faith? The man who believes does not imagine that he can control God; he places himself under His control. That he should do this is the contribution demanded of each individual in order that the community may be and remain in unity. For as each individually may be guilty of violating and demonising that which is truly divine, so each individually is summoned to confront the one Lord and His Spirit with a new reverence. The fact that he is an individual man is a threat to his personal faith and therefore to the unity of the congregation. The fact that he may be an individual Christian, however, will keep him in personal faith and protect and renew the unity of the community. He is thus made personally responsible both for it and for himself. As he perseveres in faith, or returns to it, he builds up the unity of the community, thus enabling it, so far as he is concerned, to discharge its service. (2) A second concern is for the life of the community, that it may be human and natural in its very Christianity, strong and yet also sober, free and yet ordered, to mention only a few of the things which constitute the living community of the living Lord. The one aspect calls for the other and cannot exist without it. Thus its strictly Christian character can flourish only on the soil of a serious and cheerful secularity; yet, on the other hand, it can live a meaningful human and worldly life only as this has an unassuming but self-evident Christian impress. Again, the strength of its life must find expression in a pronounced and almost rigid sobriety in deportment and appearance; yet, on the other hand, this sobriety, however correct, is of little value if it does not embody a true vitality visible and effective as such. Again, if there is a great EN126

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3. The Active Life freedom in the living community, in development of the many distinctive gifts of the one Spirit, there will also be coherence, direction and order with a view to the common goal, the one Spirit being the Author of each distinctive element; yet this will not be order in itself or for its own sake, but the order of the free Spirit and His self-discipline, the order of the fulness of this Spirit. This is why the apostles had sometimes to exhort, admonish and summon their congregations in the one direction and sometimes in the other. One can hardly fail to recognise, however, that every admonition which the community must hear and take to heart as such in relation to its life is also an admonition to each individual member. The individual Christian is also to live as a Christian, and therefore as a natural person in the world; the individual Christian is also to live by a strong and therefore sober faith; the individual Christian is also to be quite free and therefore disciplined. He personally is to be that which makes the Christian community what it is. He cannot be a Christian without being in the community. Hence he will constantly orientate his life by that of the community and its other members. Indeed, he will constantly have to wait for and receive his own life from it. He will not, therefore, withdraw from its assemblies. He will become what he is only by his intercourse with it, by his participation in the ebb and flow of its life. He will thus rejoice and give thanks with it when its life is healthy, when it satisfies to some extent those opposing but reciprocal demands. Similarly he will suffer with it in the weaknesses, errors, distortions and exaggerations of its life. It will concern him personally if either on the one side or the other it falls sick and is even perhaps threatened with death. He will first seek the cause of its impotence and aberration at the point where they will surely meet him most clearly, i.e., in himself, in his own contribution to its life. Hence he will not criticise without first levelling the criticism at himself. He will not call for nor demand reformation without asking how matters stand with his own reformed Christianity. He will raise his voice with vigour only when this question has first robbed him of his voice and reduced him to a prolonged and radical silence. He will not seek to edify himself but the community. Only in and with it can he be a Christian. Of what avail is private edification or private Christian life? A life is not Christian if it is not life in and with the community. What is demanded by the imminent kingdom is that the life of the community be a witness of service. But the individual will see that this claim is first addressed to himself, and occupied with it he will live in and with the community, participating in its meetings and history, contributing actively to its life and taking part in its service. (3) A third concern is for the Word which underlies, sustains and continually renews the life of the community, i.e., for its theology. The service of the community consists in that great declaration. It has something to say. It has to proclaim the kingdom, to announce its Lord as the Lord of the world. But has it really something to say,and is this what it has to say?This can never be taken for granted. If it is genuinely so, then it will be because it has continually and not just once heard and understood it, accepting and taking it to heart at its

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own time and place as a declaration to itself. Thus the inner life of the community cannot be empty of word and thought. It is not a vegetative or animal life, but one which is "logical" in the strictest sense. At every place and timeand this is basic to all else-it must be a life in knowledge, a life with and under and from and in the Word by which it is commissioned. It may be noted that as such it cannot satisfy itself, nor can it try to be an end in itself. As the edification of the community generally is not an end in itself but edification with a view to its external service, so it is not an end in itself in its basic character as edification by and in the Word, as theological edification. Its ministry of the Word has an external goal; it does not seek only a fundamentally egotistic enjoyment of the Word. For the sake of this external ministry, however, there must be an internal. Hence the assemblies of the community are assemblies for the proclamation of the Lord and His kingdom as this is to be continually heard afresh by Christians themselves. The worship of the community in all its conceivable forms implies a reestablishment of the community by a new and common perception of the kingdom. Since this is a common perception, the human service to be rendered therewith must be understood and put into effect as a joint responsibility of the whole community. It may well be unavoidable in practice that only a few and usually the same few members will have to bear direct responsibility in this matter. We should never lose the sense, however, that this is only a quid pro quoEN127, a practical makeshift. The division of the community into a teaching and a listening Church must never be accepted in principle. In principle the inner edification of the community in this concrete sense, i.e., as theology, is a matter for every Christian. What is at stake is not theology in its erudite technicalities but in its essence and spiritual function, i.e., reflection, orientated on and inspired and guided by the prophetic and apostolic testimony, concerning the mystery of jesus Christ, the reality of the kingdom as it has appeared in Him, and the bearing of this event for the men of all nations, tongues and times; in other words, investigation of the original meaning and the present significance of this event. To participate in this, and therefore to accompany even the work of erudite theology in the stricter sense, is the task of the community and therefore of each individual member. The Christian is not free to adopt any current religious idea, to espouse his own private philosophy, and then to urge this upon the community. On the other hand, he is both free and yet also summoned and obliged to reflect on the Word which underlies the community and is to be declared by it, and to give responsible expression to his reflections. No one will do this obediently unless he is prepared to let himself be stimulated, advised and guided by others, including professional theologians. No one will do it obediently if he is not in dialogue not only with God but also with his fellow-men and fellow-Christians. The freedom at issue is freedom in the community and not a foolish freedom on one's own responsibility and on the basis EN127

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3. The Active Life of hopeful or defiant private inspirations. No one, however, can be content at this point to be a mere "layman," to be indolent, to be no more than a passive spectator or reader. No one is excused the task of asking questions or the more difficult task of providing and assessing answers. Preaching in the congregation, and the theology which serves its preparation, can be faithful to its theme and therefore relevant and adapted to the circumstances and edifying to the community, only if it is surrounded, sustained and constantly stimulated and fructified by the questions and answers of the community. With his own questions and answers in matters of right understanding and doctrine, each individual Christian thus participates in what the community is commanded to do. If he holds aloof, or slackens, or allows himself to sleep, or wanders in to speculation and error, he must not be surprised if sooner or later the same will have to be said about the community as such and particularly about its more responsible members. How many complaints about the "Church" would never be made if only those who make them were to realise that we ourselves are the Church, so that what it has or has not to say stands or falls with us! There can be no doubt that all the great errors which have overtaken the preaching and theology of the community in the course of its history have had their true origin, not so much in the studies of the well-known errorists and heretics who have merely blabbed them out, but rather in the secret inattention and neglect, the private drowsing and wandering and erring, of innumerable nameless Christians who were not prepared to regard the listening of the community to the Word as their own concern, who wanted privacy in their thinking, and who thus created the atmosphere in which heresy and error became possible and even inevitable in the community. Conversely, there can be no doubt that the revivals and quickenings continually granted to the preaching and theology of the community have had their basis, not so much in the bearers of the great names which have come down to us in Church history as representatives of these movements, but effectively, if secretly, in the community from which they sprang, by which they were surrounded and as the mouthpiece of which they spoke, and therefore again in the innumerable nameless Christians for whom the question of correct doctrine was a burning one which they tried to address to the right quarter, and who then quietly if inarticulately found and espoused the relevant new and better answers until someone was found to bring them to expression. In this matter of the co-operation in the service of the community, each must consider whether and in what sense he has thus far participated in the service of the Word which is so central for its inner life. Each must remember that as a Christian he is fully responsible, either directly or indirectly. Each must see to it that he begins to take this responsibility seriously, or more seriously than previously. (4) In conclusion, we may refer to the love which binds together the members of the Christian community and therefore the whole community as such. In this context we can touch only briefly upon this New Testament concept; we cannot expound it fully. Those summoned to participate first in the external 169

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service of the community, then in the internal, are human persons, men and women, old and young, healthy and sick, relatively independent and relatively dependent from the social standpoint, more educated and less, of different outlooks, stronger and weaker even in faith, loyalty, zeal and patience. They can be truly and solidly bound together only by the Lord and His Spirit, or, seen from below, only by their mutual perception of the kingdom of God. There may and will be other relations between them, whether erotic, domestic, friendly, intellectual, economic, social or political. For different reasons they may and will in varying degrees interest, need, suit or like one another. But for all their strength these relations are not absolutely necessary, nor can they be maintained unconditionally. It is not these relations which cement the Christian community together. What decisively and consistently binds the people united in it is their common vocation, i.e., the horizontal relation created among them by the fact that in their own place and manner they are all in the same vertical relation. The recognition, expression and realisation of this relation between man and man is the act by which the community continually constitutes and renews itself as a human society. Does a Christian see in another Christian a relative in blood or spirit, a fellow-man in the same situation or on the same level of taste, morality or piety, a sympathetic, stimulating and helpful contemporary and companion? He may well see in him either these things or others of the same kind. But these things are not what really counts. What really counts is quite simply that a Christian sees in another Christian a man who like himself is called to faith, obedience and service, and who is therefore his brother, and that he thus recognises that he is united with and under an obligation to him as a brother. Under obligation to do what? The only answer worth considering is as follows-to grant to and secure for this other as much of the freedom physically and spiritually necessary for his life in service as a creature, as one man can grant to and secure for another, and he specifically to and for this other. No man, not even the Christian, can give another the freedom of the children of God, the freedom of the Spirit. But for the life of service there is also needed a measure of creaturely freedom, of psychophysical freedom, of space to breathe and move, of joy, of opportunity for expression and development. This is the freedom which one Christian grants to and secures for the other within the limits of his ability, but to the extent of these limits. In his place and manner he sees the other set in the same service as himself. He affirms his existence as that of his brother. He is grateful for it. He rejoices at it. But he also perceives the limitation, frailty and burden of his creatureliness. He realises how restricted he is in his freedom and therefore how threatened in his service. He certainly cannot help him in every need, but he can do so in some things, and perhaps in many. He gives this help as he can, perhaps in words or perhaps without, perhaps by simply letting him do as he pleases, perhaps by strong and definite action, perhaps by standing responsibly at his side, and always with the intention that he should become and be and remain free for

3. The Active Life his service, and on the basis of the fact that he is a brother, that they have the same Father and Lord, and that from Him they have received the same commission. This is Christian love. It is active brotherly love. It builds and sustains the community as a human society. It is as such that it should accept its service in the world. Only as such can it do so. Yet this active love is also the action in which every member of the community is summoned to direct co-operation at some point. In the person of one, or several, or perhaps many fellow-Christians standing in some need either of freedom or of more freedom, the inner history of the community enters the common sphere of vision. Everyone has an ability or talent, a personal freedom, whereby he may assist others to the same. No one can redeem another. But each has the task of loosing others, even if these others be only Christians who happen to be in his vicinity. Each has the task of releasing them in some small measure from their creaturely existence, of lightening, cheering and strengthening them as he is able and to the very best of his ability. To help them in this way to be free for service is itself service. In this form service is both proposed to each and demanded of each. There can be no doubt that active as distinct from contemplative or meditative brotherly love is the most difficult form of Christian service, not necessarily because it may sometimes demand great sacrifices of time and strength and even external possessions, but because Christian service in this form is so indirect and unpretentious, because as service of the Lord in the person of the brother it seems to lack almost entirely the direct splendour of an endeavour on His behalf and for His cause. For often, and in the strict sense always, it is so difficult to recognise in the other a man who has the same calling and who is therefore a brother. Often, and in the strict sense always, it is difficult to see here genuine service, and the common Lord and His Spirit. His limitation, frailty and burden are easily seen. But are they really the limitation, frailty and burden of one whom it is worth while to help by granting and securing his freedom and loving him as a brother? Does he look like someone of whom something important is to be expected, so that it is essential to help him? Is there really a brother in respect of whom we do not have sound reasons for letting love grow cold or preventing it from growing warm? What can make him so interesting to me, when he is obviously only a man and hardly known by me (if at all) even as a Christian, that I must love him, and indeed love him actively? This is, of course, a resigned and despairing question which shows that I myself am obviously only a man, and probably hardly known to the other as a Christian. This is the very difficulty of this form of service. Active brotherly love demands a kind of double leap. The fact that the brother is also a man cannot be overlooked. It has to be acknowledged. But it is precisely as a man that he needs the freedom to be able to be a Christian, and it is to this end that I am summoned to help him in his humanity. Again, it is quite true that as his brother I am only a man. But it is as a man that I am summoned to do what is Christian. At this point the origin of every call and admission into the community, and of every existence in it in faith, is very concretely revealed and

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tested and must prove itself. We remember the sharp statement of 1 John. Without loving God, no one can love the brethren. But what is this love for God if one does not also love the brethren, and love them actively? There can be no contesting the fact that this most difficult form of service is not just one among others. If it is not the basis, it is at least the conditio sine qua non EN128 of all Christian service. The Christian community is powerless to do what it should do in this world if the people assembled in it try to deny this service, the service of brotherly love. Of what help to them is even the most serious participation in its life in freedom and order, in strength and sobriety, in its service under and by the Word, to what purpose is all their participation in its external service, and how can it be co-operation in the fulfilment of the task of the community, if the Christian, or pretended Christian as he really is, evades that which constitutes co-operation? There can be no co-operation except in active brotherly love. Only as this is practised does the community edify itself. Only in the measure in which he practises it does the individual participate in its edification as demanded of him. If he does not seem to practise it, the question is pertinent whether his admission into the community and therefore his faith, his recognition of the kingdom of God, are true and genuine. 3. All this may be presupposed as we now turn to the external commission and service of the community in the world. The existence of the community, and therefore co-operation in its life, is not an end in itself. It finds its outreach in its world-wide commission to the enormous majority of those who are not Christians, i.e., among all the personal histories and in the universal history in which the kingdom of God is not recognised and which are thus very differently orientated from Church history. We may state at once that the individual Christian called to co-operate in the service of the community is himself outside as well as inside. He is very much a man as well as a Christian. He is not only in the congregation but totally in the world as well, and therefore in the dark and alien and opposing sphere to which the community is sent as "sheep in the midst of wolves" (Mt. 1016). In this true service especially he can co-operate only in faith. He cannot face the world from a safe harbour, but only as he faces himself, and the wolf in himself. He is not to do this, however, for his own sake, i.e., in order to convert or to save himself, which is in any case impossible. He is to do it for the sake of the kingdom, and therefore for the sake of others outside, to whom the community is sent because God has loved the world and this must be declared to it. If in his co-operation in this service of witness the Christian encounters the world first and supremely in himself, this is an indication of the great difficulty of his action. But it is also a guarantee of its genuineness. As certainly as he himself stands in need of witness to the kingdom of God, this is the most profound need of the world around him. (1) We best take up the thread again at the point where we have just EN128

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3. The Active Life dropped it. What the community owes to the world, and each individual within it, is basically that in its life, and in the lives of all its members, there should be attempted an imitation and representation of the love with which God loved the world. But this means that the Christian community cannot be against the world; it can only be for it. This necessarily underlies all that is to be said about its commission and service. To those without it may seem to be the "enemy of the human race," and they may regard and treat it as such. But it for its part can never regard the world as its enemy even in its corruption. Because God loved the world and His kingdom is the light of the world, its espousal of His cause can find expression only in activity on its behalf and not in a crusade against it. The Christian community cannot redeem the world. It cannot redeem even a single individual from anyone of his enslavements by sin and its consequences, just as within the community itself no one brother can redeem another. But as one brother can and should love another in faith, granting to and securing for him spiritual and physical freedom according to the measure of his ability, so all of them, and therefore the community as a whole, are summoned in a way which is decisive for all else to give as they are able to the world, i.e., to non-Christians outside, that which makes humanly possible their service to themselves. What men require is the freedom of the Spirit. This the community cannot give them. This they can only declare to them in the hope that their testimony will not be in vain, that God will use it to cause that which it attests to be revealed to them and effective for them. It can perform this service, however, only as and to the extent that it loves them and loves them actively, and therefore as and to the extent that their freedom as creatures, from the lack of which they suffer, becomes its first and basic concern and task. To be able to recognise and accept this testimony, they all need this freedom, and therefore they all stand in need of a little love on the part of those who declare the testimony to them. If we want to show men the kingdom of God, we must prove that we care for them just as they are, that we regard them as fellow-creatures in distress, and that we feel bound and obligated to them as such because of the kingdom which has appeared, because of the salvation which must be declared to them, because of the fact thatJesus Christ has been born and has acted as then Brother, because of the fact that this has been done to their advantage. As the circle of Christian love thus closes for the performance of this service, the more closed it is in itself the more it must open outwards in fulfilment of the service. It is the circle of love directed towards the neighbour as such, i.e., the fellow-man as he is without the Gospel, namely, the stranger, the non-Christian, the enemy perhaps, the man who is openly or secretly godless. If this neighbour experiences opposition, hatred, contempt, or even indifference from this circle, if he is attacked by it, if a different wind from that of genuine human freedom blows on him, how can he attend and listen to the testimony of the freedom of the Spirit, of the kingdom and grace, which is supposedly borne to him? 173

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Where Christians are unwilling to love men, how can they say that God loves them or that they are loved by God? They can only prove thereby that they are not too sure about this themselves, and perhaps that they are not even aware of it. For they themselves are only men, and they are always non-Christians as such. As the friends of God they are also His enemies, as believers godless. If they are aware and sure of the fact that God has loved them as such, they must also be aware and sure of this fact in respect of others too. Their decisive presupposition in respect of every man can be only that Jesus Christ has died for his sin too, and for his salvation. They must regard and approach every man from this angle. Hence they can never be against men. They can only be for them, not just theoretically but practically, with their action or inaction, their speech or silence, their intervention or toleration, as these procure space and courage and joy for them simply as men. The whole credibility of the Christian service of witness as a human act depends on whether the work of active human love precedes and follows it, accompanying and sustaining it as the commentary and illustration of an eloquent parable. This is the first thing which must be said concerning the co-operation of each individual in the service of the community to the world. "Let your moderation be known unto all men" (Phil. 45). There can be nothing either before this or without it. (2) The second thing to be considered is the task of mission committed to the community. We understand the concept primarily in the narrower and external sense as the task of self-renewal by the winning of new human members from the world around, of summoning non-Christians to an understanding of their call and therefore to faith, to obedience and to co-operation in the service of the community. The community cannot make a Christian. This is God's own act. But the community cannot exist in the world without calling men out of it, without inviting them to participate in its work. It stands in need of them. Or rather, its Lord is so mighty and gracious that He wills continually to raise up and employ new witnesses to the kingdom from the ranks of those who are still remote and alien. This is what the community has to say distinctly and indefatigably to those who are outside. It cannot expect that all will hear and understand. It has been given no promise that all or even the majority of men will ever be Christians. There is no promise of a Christian world. Jesus Christ is indeed Lord of all men, and what He has done He has done for all. But it is not for everyone to have faith in Him. Hence the community must accept the fact that it will always be a small minority. It must accept the fact that as this minority it may be further reduced by the falling away of those who have joined it only in appearance. It will not be astonished to-day if, after the mass influx of past centuries, there is a mass exodus more in keeping with the reality. On the other hand, there is none who might not become a Christian, whether among those who are now ignorant and indifferent, or among avowed enemies of the Gospel, or especially among noisy and defiant atheists. There is none who might not be destined to find inJesus of Nazareth his Master. There is none who, as the human creature he is, might not be permitted 174

3. The Active Life and compelled to follow Him. There is none who might not be destined for the highest post in His service. Since this possibility is everywhere open among men of every nation and class, the community must engage in mission, casting the net to catch men. Only through misconception of its task, or sheer neglect, can it fail to do this, acquiescing in existing conditions, not looking out for new men for the further execution of its task, nor exerting itself to win them. The community is alive only when it is engaged as such in recruitment, and when it is particularly concerned about recruitment in what seem to be the darkest regions of the world, i.e., in places where the Gospel is still quite unknown or completely rejected, in medio inimicorumEN129. The community is as such a missionary community or it is not the Christian community. Again, each individual is responsible for its actually being a missionary community. The decision may well be expressed in joint resolutions and actions. But the strength of these resolutions and actions depends on the earnestness of the personal Christian decisions which stand behind them. Are Christians self-satisfied? Is it enough for them to possess and cultivate their Christian piety in the specific form in which it is theirs in a specific time and place, passing it on in their own families and countries as though it were a kind of inheritance? Are they best left alone with it in the company of their kind? If so, there is no mission, or mission only in the form of an innocuous subsidiary activity accepted because it is a duty, because it is stimulating and interesting to be engaged as a Christian in some form of mission. Or are Christians dissatisfied with themselves? Are they disturbed by the thought that their own or the customary and familiar way of understanding and practising the Gospel, as, for example, in Europe and America, is only partially and restrictedly commensurate with its reality, and that new people must come with their very different modes of thought and speech and action to take it up in a new and better way? Do they therefore look with longing eyes beyond the existing boundaries of the Christian world for such new people? If so, mission is of vital importance for them. That is to say, it is essential that they should seek out these new Christians of the future. But the real decision is taken further back. What matters is whether individual Christians really know and practise the fact that truly and basically every Christian as such is a missionary, not necessarily in the technical but certainly in the spiritual sense, namely, that he is a brother who in loyalty to the brethren whom he already has looks out among those who are not yet brethren for those who will become so, who will thus be called to co-operate in the service of the community, and who have perhaps only to be told this to see its truth and to act accordingly. It is painful to have to admit, and it is a serious indictment of our established European churches, that in the main this approach is to be found only in external organisations and the so-called sects, and that in the great churches it is usually encountered only among those who belong to special societies and not in the congregations as EN129

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such, in which it seems to be tacitly suspected as fanatical, intolerant and interfering. We have to remember that every Christian is to be a missionary, a recruiting officer for new witnesses. If our congregations do not recognise this and act accordingly, they cannot be missionary congregations, and therefore they cannot be truly Christian. (3) The third point to be mentioned is what we might call the opus propriumEN130 of the community, namely, its commission to preach the Gospel to the world. It is in this wider, deeper and more material sense that it is a missionary community. It is for this purpose that it must expand in the world, that it wills to renew itself by admission of men from the world. Through increasing and ever new witnesses the world must be given the intimation that God has espoused its cause, that God has aided it, that it is not a world left to itself but a world which He has loved and saved and which He preserves and rules and conducts to its salvation, and that everything that takes place in it, the whole of human life in all its confusion and affliction and sin and guilt and trouble, indeed, the whole of creaturely life in its subjection, hastens to meet the revelation of what God has accomplished in its favour. The community has to proclaim to the world the free grace of God and the hope which this carries with it. It has to declare to it that Jesus Christ, very God and very man, has come as its Saviour and will come again. This is the announcement of the kingdom of God. This is the Gospel. The Christian community does not exist for itself; it exists for the Gospel. It has accepted the primary fact that in Jesus Christ God has put matters right, securing once and for all His own glory as Creator but also the glory of His creature. It has seen that this first thing will also be the last. It has perceived that every happening has in it both its beginning and its end, deriving from it and hastening back to it. It has seen that time and all that is in it is lovingly, patiently, mercifully and helpfully included in it. Having perceived this, it lives among those who have not, at the heart of their great attempt to live without God, in the midst of their countless small attempts to help, justify, sanctify and glorify themselves, within the evils which they thereby inflict on themselves, in the misery which they bring upon themselves and in all the resultant excitement, anxiety and care in which they must exist. The Christian community knows that all this is unnecessary. It sees that No has already been said to it. This is what it has to say to men on the basis of what it has perceived. To be sure, it cannot conceal from them the fact that their great attempt is wrong and futile, that it is outmoded from the very outset, that it can be made only in new sin and with the prospect of new corruption, and therefore that all the small attempts in which the great is revealed and presented are radically overthrown. It cannot approve nor tolerate the way and ways of the world. It has to indicate a very different path. On the other hand, its decisive task is not to confront men with this objection, criticism and negation, nor with a programme, plan or law in the performance of which EN130

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3. The Active Life men must abandon that great attempt to live without God, counterbalancing it by the opposite attempt to return to God and with His help to make everything different and better. This is what the Synagogue does. This is what Freemasonry does. This is what Moral Rearmament does. But this is not what the Church of Jesus Christ does. It has no right to make proposals to men as though they could now help, justify, sanctify and glorify themselves more thoroughly and successfully than hitherto. It cannot set before them any better men, any sinless men, any innocent men, any men who escape the confusion and sorrow of the world. It has no such men to hold out as examples to follow, as though others had only to imitate them to extricate themselves from the quagmire and hell in which they live. It realises indeed that men, belonging to God as His creatures, know deep down the perversity and futility of their attempt and attempts. It knows that at the true and final core of their being is a great weariness and sorrow which they can only conceal and suppress with all their running and clamouring and fighting. It knows that they are all in God's hand, that they cannot escape it, that they inflict so much sorrow on themselves only by continually trying to resist and oppose it. It knows, therefore, that it cannot help them by confirming their true state in the form of accusation. It knows that of themselves men certainly will not overcome and remove this opposition. It knows also that it cannot do it for them. It knows that it does not even say anything new, let alone give real aid, if it can do no more than propose the best and latest plans, programmes and laws for the elimination of the suffering which results from this opposition, and of its underlying causes. It knows above all that it, too, stands under judgment with all others, that the same opposition is also to be found among Christians, that the community also, the Church in all its forms and enterprises, participates fully and very concretely in the perversity and futility of all human efforts, and that it is therefore useless from the very outset for it to offer or commend either itself or the Christians united within it as a salutary example. No, its great and simple but very different commission is that of declaring to them the kingdom of God, and not therefore a means to help them to do something, but the one truth that God has already begun to do something for them and that He will also complete it in spite of their opposition, outbidding all the attempts which spring from this opposition, overlooking and by-passing all their perversity and futility. What it has to attest to them is neither the divine No nor an improved and Christian Yes,but the divine Yeswhich does, of course, include a No, i.e., the divine judgment, and which also evokes and entails a new human Yes, but which over and above all is the wise and intrinsically powerful Yes which God has spoken to His creature and which He will finally execute and reveal. The presence of this divine Yesis the new and glorious message which is entrusted to the Christian community and which it is commissioned to deliver on earth. It need neither ask nor worry what the result will be, what success it will either enjoy or not enjoy, so long as it is obedient in this service. The

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power, fruitfulness, blessing and true help of the Word of God is God's own work, and He has His own varied and very secret ways to accomplish this work. All that the community can and should do is to attest this Word. It does not live by its own triumphs over the world, nor in order to be able to achieve and celebrate such triumphs. It does not live by its numerical growth, nor by asserting itself in the world. It lives by its commission. Its task is simply to see to it that the comfort and exhortation of the divine Yes are declared, and that they are declared as clearly and forcibly and impressively and universally as possible. It has simply to scatter the seed as it is, not on any account mixing with it its own ideas either in criticism of the world or for its amelioration. Nevertheless, it must not be faint-hearted. It must be confident that just as it is this seed is the good seed which will bear fruit a hundredfold, sixtyfold or thirtyfold, possibly in very different ways from what it imagines, but all the same real fruit. It must be only the community of the Gospel, content to be no more. Whatever may be enterprised against it cannot prevent it from being the community of the Gospel, let alone destroy it as such. And whatever may have to be said against either it or its members cannot hinder it from being the community of the Gospel. The Word which it has to declare will always place it first under judgment in a far more serious manner than anything that may be said against it from without or that it may have to allege against itself. But the Word which it has to declare will always uphold it. As the community of the Word it may always and supremely live by the Gospel, accepting the divine Yes, taking to heart both its admonition and its consolation, and therefore, notwithstanding all its weakness and all the perversity and futility of human action in which it shares, being fundamentally sure of its cause and therefore undaunted. The community, however, exists in the individuals who within it are summoned and assembled for the service of the Gospel. Again the decision whether it is the community of the Gospel at work in the world as such is taken, when seen from below, in each of those who have been admitted and belong to it. Has this man accepted the kingdom of God as the kingdom of grace and hope for himself and therefore for all creatures? Does he live by the knowledge thatJesus Christ has come and will come again as Saviour for him and for the whole world? Does he think of his life in the cosmos, and in himself of the whole cosmos, as surrounded by this beginning and end of his time, and therefore of his time as limited by the fact that the glory of God, as also of His creature, is once and for all safeguarded by God Himself? In his sin and guilt and resultant suffering as an opponent of God, is he nourished by the divine Yes which is nevertheless addressed to him and to the whole world? Or is he secretly nourished and quickened by a Yes which he speaks to himself, by a forgiveness which he grants to himself, by a glorification which he hopes to gain for himself by his own plans? Is he secretly nourished and quickened by the fact that he sees the godlessness of others so radically that he very rightly has to find fault with their sins of omission and commission? Is he secretly nourished and quickened by the force of his disapproval, anger and regret at

3. The Active Life the world and its powers and representatives, by the force with which he proclaims its hour of "crisis"? Is he secretly nourished and quickened by the fact that he knows how everything might be altered and improved, or at least by the fact that he knows, thank God, that he himself is a Christian, and that he also knows how to confess and conduct himself as such in the prevailing disorder? It is surely obvious that in such ways he secretly and in fact chooses and as it were provokes and draws down upon himself the divine No. It is also obvious that if the community is an assembly of such unevangelical Christians it cannot be the community of the Gospel, nor can it perform its service to the world under this sign and therefore with undaunted joy. Seen from below, it lives by the knowledge that its members live personally by the Gospel, both in the humility thereby dictated and the freedom thereby granted. At what other point can it be decided whether it is really separate and distinct from the world and therefore in a position to declare to it the new and glorious fact which it cannot say to itself? At this point it will also be decided whether it can will to obey the command and summons to say this to the world, whether its role in world history is not to be that of a dumb dog. If it resembles the world in the sense that in its members it is trying to live by a human Yes, however sublime and pious and Christian, where is it to find the strength to face and address the world? For in this case, what has it to say to it? Possibly a good deal of criticism and well-meant advice such as may be voiced in other quarters. But there is really no necessity to say this to the world. For after all, the world knows it just as well and perhaps even better than it does itself. This is the kind of thing that can perhaps be said once or twice, but is better left unsaid the third time. The only thing which never dates is the Gospel. The true impulse to go out into the world and address it can derive only from the fact that the community knows something which the world does not know. This, however, can only be the kingdom of God as the kingdom of grace and hope, its consolation and admonition. Hence if there is to be this impulse, if the community is really to enter on its proper service, everything depends on each individual within it, on his having this knowledge as a living and personal consolation in life and death. The active life as co-operation in the service of the community is at this central point quite simply the inner and outer activity which stems directly from this knowledge. (4) We cannot conclude this survey without finally and emphatically pointing to the prophetic service of the community. It always serves, i.e., it always loves and reaches out and evangelises, at a specific time, in a particular phase of universal occurrence, among men who in accordance with this phase take a specific active or passive part in world events, acting and suffering, impelling and being impelled, in this or that specific way.Always, at all times and to all men, it has to attest with its service the same eternal Word of God. But it is not itself eternal. Hence its service cannot be eternal. Nor can it be timeless or supra-temporal, just as the eternity of God is not timeless or supra-temporal. The community does not serve as if it were under a glass cover sealing it off

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from current time and its events, from the activity and suffering of living men. It serves as in and with its members it has a direct part in all these things-no less a part, but at least the same, as that of all others, and in reality a much bigger part, a part which, in virtue of the object of its service, is absolutely direct. Just because the object of its service is the eternal Word of God, it takes place, so to speak, at the centre of every time, in relation to the point at which, in the light of its beginning and end, time is always the present, at the centre of all world-occurrence, in attestation of its core in salvation history, and therefore in the midst of all the men who at a specific time are impelled and act as participants in its particular occurrence. No activity of statesmen and nations, of masses and their spokesmen and representatives, of scholars, artists, technicians and generals, can"ever be more thoroughly temporal than the activity of the Christian community when it is active in its service. And to the extent that its action is temporal in this basic sense, it is prophetic. It rests on arecognition of the kingdom of God as it has come and comes. It consists essentially in the declaration of this kingdom. It thus represents what has been done by God, but also what has still to be done and will be done. It refers back to that qualified past, and in the light of it anticipates that qualified future. It attests the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the beginning and His coming again as the end of all things, and therefore His presence, His lordship, being and life, as the Saviour of the world. In retrospect and prospect of Him, referring back to what has already been accomplished in Him and anticipating what is still to be consummated, it attests that He alone reigns in eternity and therefore in time. It thus attests what is now, to-day, and at the deepest level, true, real and valid. The community views time and its events and people, it views the actual world, from this point. It cannot turn to the world and address it without also telling it in a concrete way,with reference to its various figures and events and their outstanding decisions taken on the way from the most recent past to the most immediate future, that it looks upon it from this point, and how it does so. It would have to be completely silent, or simply to mutter to itself instead of addressing the world as it should; it would have to neglect or abandon its ministry towards it, if it were not prepared to tell it this. Obviously in so doing it cannot say to men what they can already know or think or say of themselves concerning their time and situation and its problems, anxieties and tasks. It may be that, in the event, what the community thinks and says will sometimes coincide with what others think and say about what has happened and has still to happen. But this is never to be expected. And even when it does take place, we have still to reckon with the fact that its witness has quite different dimensions, so that after a short external agreement with what is said by others it points away in what is for them a strange direction. For there is a great difference between the same secular matters as seen from the standpoint of the kingdom of God and as seen from a supposedly inherent logic, metaphysics and ethics; and what has to be said from the two angles will be very different. Even though the prophetic witness of the Christian community to its 180

3. The Active Life contemporaries is only human and fallible in all its judgments and applications, it is free in relation to everything represented from other standpoints. It will normally be very different from the accounts given elsewhere. If it finds itself in too broad agreement with what governments, ruling parties or the masses say in other quarters, this does not have to mean that it is false prophecy, but the question whether it might be false is very relevant and must be considered very strictly by the community. It is far more likely, however, that what it has to say will be most unwelcome in relation to what the spirit of the age sighs or shouts or murmurs or cries. If it is truly its prophetic witness, then it is not drawn from the depths of the present, but in the present from the depths of that qualified past and qualified future. It is spoken in face of the Lord who came and is to come again. It is spoken in the present in responsibility to Him. Normally, then, it will come as a surprise. From this standpoint the community will sometimes have to call unrighteous what everyone regards as righteous, and to recognise a higher justice where everyone feels it incumbent to protest against a notorious injustice. It will sometimes have to utter things which will most deeply disturb those who are calm, and sometimes to say to those who are disturbed that first and supremely they may be calm again. It will now have to announce and predict an imminent disaster, now to speak loudly and gladly of hope in an atmosphere of general pessimism. It must sometimes seem to be decisively for one side against another, sometimes refer equally decisively to a third quarter. It must now commend the path of sound common sense under the most valuable sign that two twos are four and not five, now champion the daring enterprise of blind faith as the way of wisdom. It will sometimes have to be surprisingly conservative and sometimes extremely revolutionary. It must be all these things at the proper time, namely, at the time shown to be the right time for a particular insight and judgment in the light of eternity. In all probability-this is why it is so "untimely "-it will say that which in different ways is not in line with the world, the contemporary spirit, the mind of the majority, or those in power. In all probability it will not please the people. In all probability it will occasion aloofness, anxiety or dislike. Pressure will be brought to bear to try to make it co-ordinate its witness to some degree with the opinion and trend of average sensible people. It is not infallible. It may well have things to learn or to correct. But if it were really to co-ordinate its witness with the voice of the world, if it were constantly to correspond and conform to the average judgments of the world, its witness would not be prophetic. It might just as well be silent, since the world usually states its case loudly and forcibly enough without a spiritual sjorzandoEN131. When its voice is heard in the markets of the world, it is well advised to keep to the pure Gospel. To be sure, the pure Gospel is usually thought to be innocuous. But what is usually envisaged is not the pure Gospel. It is a timeless or supratemporal Gospel which does not even touch contemporary events, let alone EN131

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affect them, and which does not therefore disturb the world. Now it is true that the community must alwaysbe prepared to consider whether what it believes it must say concretely in a given situation is really the attestation of God's eternal Word or whether it has been long since inclined to take sides with a party or simply to follow the line of least resistance and to talk political claptrap. Yet abusus non tollit usumEN132. The timeless or supra-temporal Gospel which is neutral and avoids contemporary events is certainly not the pure Gospel, and if its testimony is designed to be evangelical in an abstract sense it is not only not prophetic but is actually false prophecy. For if anything is false prophecy, it is the proclamation of a community which for safety's sake tries to withdraw into an inner line and to devote itself to neutrality. When it emerges from this neutrality and refuses to return to it, it will be accused and attacked, being suspected and treated as a foe by both great and small, both the too clever and the too stupid. This is not always a good sign. Perhaps it has bungled its case. Perhaps it has obeyed other spirits than the Holy Spirit. Perhaps it has deserved its troubles. On the other hand, its troubles may be a good sign as the necessary consequence of its glad and untiring fulfilment of its prophetic witness. The wisest of the children of this world will probably reach the unfavourable conclusion that the community is an unsafe, unreliable and incalculable factor. From their standpoint, it necessarily has to be this. It can be sure and constant only in pursuing its own way. It can try to be consistent only in obeying its Lord. For this very reason it can neither endorse an alien policy nor seek to initiate its own Church policy, perhaps through a Christian party. In deeply involved and positive opposition to every human policy, it can only point to God's policy, which is not a system but His sovereign and hidden action which it must humbly but vigorously follow as it listens to His Word, and the way of which it must now attest both in strength and weakness. The matter is beset by many problems. It is by no means self-evident in any situation that the community really has a correct view of events and therefore the right word for its contemporaries. It cannot speak to them from the possessive or controlling height of God's Word; it can speak only human words under the Word of God. In a given situation it may even be commanded to give its witness by remaining silent. Moreover, it has to consider that what it says cannot have any weight in virtue of its sacral character or sound, or of the authoritative claim with which it is said, or even of the fact that it is couched in the language of the Bible, but only in so far as in the actual situation, whether noticed, understood or accepted by men or not, it is actually right and will sooner or later prove to be so to those outside. Above all, it must see to it that in what it says it does not depart either from the love which it always owes to its contemporaries, even though sometimes it may be a rather austere love, or even less from the proclamation of the Gospel as the good news that God loves the world and that in all its errors and confusions it is still the world which is loved by Him. The EN132

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3. The Active Life prophecy of the community can be ten times right in substance and yet still be false prophecy if it is not the prophecy of grace and hope but of a wicked, scolding and quarrelsome community. True prophecy can only be that of a community which materially as well as formally speaks in terms of Christmas and Easter, and therefore of Advent. Each individual Christian is summoned to co-operate in this whole aspect of its service in the world. Each lives in the community, and for this very reason in time, in the midst of world-occurrence among those who stand without. Each experiences concretely what happens in this sphere. Each has to suffer in it. Each is faced by the questions and tasks which it poses. Each is both bound and liberated by what the community may know concerning its Lord who has come and will come again as the Lord of the whole world, and therefore concerning the beginning and end of all things. Each is called to understand and interpret the signs of the times. The prophetic voice of the community is powerful or feeble, confused or clear, true or deluded, evangelical or legalistic, to the degree that the Christians united within it are for their part wise or foolish virgins, loyal or lazy servants, vigilant or sleepy watchmen, free spirits or the slaves of alien powers, glad children of God or troubled even though religious children of the world, sober realists or vapid though fiery enthusiasts. It is in their existence that the decision is made concerning the prophetic existence of the Church. It is they who in their specific ways have seen and accepted the kingdom of God. In all their involvement in world-occurrence, they come from the death and resurrection of Jesus and move forward to His return. They are engaged in drawing from this the true, half-true or false deductions. They bear and partly determine the inward and outward service of the community. Theirs, then, is the responsibility whether the community finds in time the right word or the wrong or perhaps even no word at all. Behind all the possibilities of the action and speech of the community in the world, there stands the reality of the individual Christian life with its power and powerlessness, its vision and blindness, its frankness and obstinacy, its fortitude and despondency. Co-operation in the prophetic ministry of the community means primarily for each individual that he personally should have regard to the eternal Word of God, which is as such the prophetic Word, "the light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts" (2 Pet. 119). If he does not do this, how can others, or how can the community as such? United in brotherly love with it and all its members, he will not do it on his own responsibility. He will not regard the prophetic ministry of the community as his private enterprise. On the other hand, he will not wait for nor depend on the possibility that others, e.g., some of the prominent representatives of the community, will interest themselves in this ministry. Taking his proper place, co-ordinating and subordinating himself, modestly realising that he is only one member among others, he will accept it as his personal responsibility. The problems to which this gives rise are unmistakeable but not insurmountable. It is clear on the one hand that the individual with his particular

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hearing of the Word, with his particular view of things as determined-it is to be hoped-by it, and with his resultant utterances, will not only seek every possible understanding with others and exercise all possible patience towards them, but will also impose upon himself a certain restraint in his outlook towards them. For the voice which is to be heard in the world is not his own voice but that of the community. Yet it is equally clear on the other hand that in °his attitudes he can never regard himself as absolutely bound and controlled by others even if they are his best friends or the most eminent leaders of the community, but that in certain circumstances he may feel obliged to tread his lonely path without them or even in opposition to them, not singing in the choir, but singing solo in the hope that one day the choir willjoin him. In other words he must venture to assume, and accept responsibility for so doing, that even though his voice is isolated at first it is in truth the voice of the community. To venture this assumption, and to accept responsibility for it, is no small matter, and it is thus as well that the individual should constantly ask himself whether this is really demanded. Nevertheless, it can be demanded. And when it is, what choice has he but to venture this assumption and to accept responsibility for it? Again, it is clear on the one hand that when isolated voices are raised in the community, the community itself must proceed with the utmost care. They may perhaps sound shrill and unfriendly, for the soloist is also human and it is easy to claim that by the very nature of his action he puts himself in the wrong from the human standpoint. Indeed, the community may find itself compromised by him. It may suspect that the path along which he wishes to drag it is that of false prophecy. But it should also consider the following point. It lies in the very nature of the case that when the genuinely prophetic voice is raised it will always be heard first as that of individuals in the community, so that it will necessarily sound alien and offensive to others, and especially perhaps to leaders who are primarily concerned about the continuity of the Church. To some extent it may also lie in the nature of the case that the man who raises this voice will show himself to be human in many respects. What a pity! say those around. Yes, but "were he to reflect, his name would not be Tell." And those who bemoan his audacity must be careful that they do not make it a welcome excuse for not applying what he says to themselves, or for justifying their attempts at evasion. They are perhaps required not to dissociate themselves from him too hastily, far less to suppress or ignore him. For all that it is so inevitably or accidentally vexatious, his voice might well be an echo of that of the Lord and therefore a true voice of the community. It is thus to be not merely allowed in the community but heeded and examined with the utmost candour and objectivity. Perhaps the lone wolf is championing to-day that which to-morrow, or better still to-night, the whole community will have to champion. Yet it is equally clear on the other hand that the community cannot permit its way to be dictated to it by any individual however impressive, nor can it allow itself to be tossed here to-day and there to-morrow by its supposed or apparent prophets. The community as such may

3. The Active Life have to relearn again and again from the very beginning what is its prophetic service in the world. Yet it is the community itself which is responsible for its fulfilment. It requires the co-operation of each individual, and therefore it must not quench the Spirit, namely, the Holy Spirit (1 Thess. 519). Nevertheless, it must not omit to test the spirits, i.e., the human spirits, within it (1 In. 41). For the responsibility of the individual is simply to co-operate in its service, and particularly in its prophetic service. It is the task of the whole community to be the bearer of the light which shines in a dark place. The supreme and proper form of the active life required of man, the given step to freedom, the ministry for which he is needed and to which he is called, is thus his co-operation in the inward and outward service of the Christian community. This is the primary interest of the New Testament when it is a question of the activity of man and therefore of his freedom and service. And here, of course, we have a direct reflection of the life ofJesus Christ Himself as Saviour. In it man's active life corresponds directly to that which according to Holy Scripture forms the centre of God's action, i.e., the coming of His kingdom, His activity as the Lord of the covenant, His work of reconciling the world to Himself. To understand the command of God the Creator in relation to the active life of man, we have had to remember that the internal basis of creation is the covenant and therefore the kingdom, the reconciliation accomplished and to be consummated inJesus Christ. We have had to anticipate the second and third articles of the creed. For only from this standpoint could we see what God primarily requires of His human creature when it is a matter of His activity, namely, that he should act and be free and serve in acceptance of His kingdom, as His ally, as the witness of His work of reconciliation. Hence we have had to speak basically of man's co-operation in the ministry of the Christian community. This is the true and essential human activity. What has still to be mentioned and described can only be as it were a predicate of this subject. Without this anticipation it would be left dangling in the void. Christian ethics cannot very well be started except as we have tried to start it. It is to the credit of Schleiermacher that in his Christliche Sitte he made a similar but even more systematic and comprehensive attempt. For everywhere in his presentation of the different strands of Christian conduct he first considers conduct in the Church and the conduct of the Church. Against the background of his basic view, this has, of course, a rather different meaning from that which we have given it in this context. For with Schleiermacher the Church is quite simply the basic and comprehensive community of culture. All the same, the fact that he has given it this prominent function is worth noting. For all its dubiety, the consideration which guided him in this was at least closer to Holy Scripture than that of later Protestant ethics, which usually did not speak of the Church until the end, as if its activity were a final and supreme achievement which might perhaps be omitted. The ethics of W. Herrmann is, of course, a remarkable exception in this regard, for at the beginning of a special section entitled "Die Aufgabe des Christen in der Welt" (s 25) he referred 'primarily to the task of the Christian as a witness, more particularly in his capacity as a member of the Christian Church. It is also a meritorious feature of the ethics ofN. H. S0e that in S 40 ("Die Stellung des Christen zur Arbeit") he points most emphatically to the fact that what we

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~ 55. Freedom for Life usually regard and value as work is indeed envisaged in the New Testament but is given only second place, the first place being assigned to the work of Jesus Christ Himself and His community, which consists in the service of mission or the ministry of the Gospel. This insight is not new in itself, but it is usually neglected in ethics, and needs to be radically adopted and developed, as we have tried to do in our own particular context.

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According to the witness of Holy Scripture, however, the action of God has a circumference as well as this centre. If the covenant is the internal basis of creation, creation is the external basis of the covenant. The God who is the Saviour and Reconciler of His creature, visiting him in the coming of His kingdom in order that he might be saved and perfected in His mercy, does not cease to be faithful towards him as his Creator. He is the King of Israel; He becomes flesh for the sake of those who are flesh; He awakens, renews and illumines by His Holy Spirit the man chosen and called by Him. Yet in all this He is also the King of the universe, the Lord, Sustainer and Guardian, the Regent and Director of creaturely existence as such, of heaven and earth, of all creatures and men, of man in the totality of his being and existence. As He intervenes for the world, conducting at its centre His own cause and the world's, He does not cease to care also for its continuance before Him, for the existence and welfare of all His creatures. They are for Him not merely objects of His grace and judgment, of His promises and commands, of His forgiveness and sanctification, of His whole renewing, converting and quickening speech and action. He does not only presuppose them as such, as though they were completely opposed to Him, as though they were left to themselves and their own inner laws, as though they had to fend for themselves and preserve and rule themselves, until the specific divine speech and action in the coming of the kingdom somehow worked out to their advantage. The fact that the cosmos and man within it are already present as the object of this specific divine Word and work, so that the latter are not without an object, is itself the decree and will and work of God from creation. And concern for this presupposition is God's action on the circumference of the centre which we have considered thus far. It is the sway of His fatherly providence. What we now call the work of man corresponds to this providential rule. As God sees to His creature, and cares for it, in order that it may not cease as the object of His love. He requires of man the action corresponding to this care and providence. Addressing and claiming him as His covenant-partner, or, we may now say concretely, as a member of the Christian community, He also commands him-in order to make this possible-to exist as His human creature, requiring that his active life should take this human form, and fulfil itself in this form. Work is this human form. It cannot, then, be the centre of human activity. It constitutes its circumference, just as the rule of divine providence is not the centre but only the circumference of God's activity. But as God's activity has this circumference as well as the centre, the same is true of the activity which He requires of man. God inJesus Christ wills not only the election, call, justification and sanctification of man, and for the attestation of this work the 186

3. The Active Life service of the Christian community, but in order that all this may take place, in it and for the sake of it, He wills man himself and his existence as a creature. Similarly, man cannot will only to believe, to hope and to love, and therefore to know this divine work, to experience and serve and correspond to it, but in order to do all this, to be an acting subject as well as an object in relation to the coming of God's kingdom, he is summoned to continue in existence as a human creature, i.e., as an object of the divine providence, but also, since he is the human creature, as an acting subject. The regard paid to the will of God, the hearing of the command of the one God as the King of Israel but also the King of the cosmos, includes man's obedience in this direction too. As there is no gap in God's action, as He neither neglects nor forgets His creature in acting towards him as Saviour, but actively remembers him, so there should be no gap in man's activity, but he must actively remember for his part that he is summoned to be presen t as man in co-operation in the service of the Christian community. Again, as the active recollection of both aspects cannot involve any cleavage or dualism or double kingdom in God's action, since the meaning and purpose of the rule of His fatherly providence are simply the coming of His one kingdom on earth, so the active recollection of man's twofold determination as a Christian and a man cannot divide his activity into two separate spheres under two different laws, since he has to exist as a man in order to be a Christian. The meaning of the work required of him is that he should exist as a man in order to be a Christian. Work simply means man's active affirmation of his existence as a human creature. It is implicitly commanded in the fact that God requires, claims and summons him for service as a witness of His kingdom, since this call presupposes his existence as a human creature. It is commanded because he is required and claimed by this call as a human creature, and impelled as such if he obeys it. He, man, is required for service. As he places himself at God's disposal, for better or worse he must affirm himself, and affirm himself actively, as the being challenged by God, and therefore as man. In so doing, he sets to work. He is not a stone, nor a plant, nor an animal. They also may serve God. They certainly do so in their own way. But man can serve Him only as man. And what characterises and distinguishes him as man is that he works. In work he affirms his particular existence corresponding to the particular divine affirmation conferred by his creation as man and therefore by the fact that he, too, in his particular existence is an object of the providence and care of God's universal lordship over the cosmos created by Him. Yet his particular existence lies in the hierarchically ordered unity, awakened, ruled, preserved and continually renewed by the Holy Spirit, of soul and body, of inner and outer reality, of reason and organised substantiality. Man does not serve God merely by sharing in this particular existence. Yet he can serve Him only as he does share in it, and actively affirms that this is the case. He can serve Him only as he wills and posits himself as man. It would entail a cleavage and dualism if he tried to will and posit himself abstractly as man, leaving unheard and unanswered the

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question of service and purpose as though this were only subsequent. He can will and posit himself only as he stands in the service in which his existence and purpose receive their meaning. Yet it would also entail a cleavage and dualism if he tried to serve abstractly, co-operating in the service of the Christian community in acceptance of the kingdom of God, but being unwilling to hear or answer the question of his own existence as a human creature, or answering it only in terms of fate or chance. He can serve only as he wills and posits himself as man. As he wills and posits himself as man, and therefore in that ordered unity, he sets to work for the sake of the service required of him. As the service is required of him, so is work, work itself becoming an incidental but necessary prerequisite of his service. All human work is the fulfilment of that ordered unity. As I actively affirm myself as the soul of my body and then as the body of my soul, I set to work. My existence and therefore that unity are always given me as man in such a way that I must constantly affirm and fulfil them actively. They are certainly given to me. I have not created myself. The unity does not belong to me. It is only the form of the life which I have been lent. I am not God as I exist in it. But it is given or lent me as the form of my human life in such a way that it is always incumbent on me to affirm and fulfil it. All work is the act of a synthesis. To work is to emerge from a vegetatively somatic life, from a mere objectivity, from a distinct and abstract externality. But it is also to emerge from a purely psychic existence, from a mere self-motivated intellectuality and subjectivity, from a distinct and abstract inwardness. As man works, there meet in his action, the one in orientation on the other and vice versa, the two elements in his being which are brought together by the Spirit of God and which constitute in their duality the one whole human being. But there also meet and unite in his action the two basic elements in the whole terrestrial cosmos, the earthly prior and the earthly posterior, the earthly invisible and the earthly visible, earthly spirit and earthly nature, the earthly subjective and the earthly objective. Neither the one nor the other is in itself the whole, whether in the cosmos or supremely in man. Man is man as he strives for the whole, and therefore in that act of synthesis, and therefore in work. To live as man is to fashion nature through the spirit, but also to fulfil the spirit through nature. It is the subjectivisation of the object but also the objectivisation of the subject. It is the appearance of the inward in the outward but also the substantiation of the outward through the inward. It is the besouling of the body but also the embodying of the soul. In this movement to and fro, from above downwards but also from below upwards, man lives as man, or has the task of so doing. For to live as man is what he must affirm, will and accomplish, actualising it in what he does. The synthesis does not simply exist. Nor does it fulfil itself even in a two-sided movement. It has to be initiated. And the initiative is first from above downwards, from the subject to the object, from the inner to the outer, from the soul to the body. Only then does it complete itself in the opposite direction. Man is the body of his soul. First, however, he is the sou] of his body. He 188

3. The Active Life must be the latter to be the former. He himself, his soul, is in direct relation to God's awakening and sustaining Spirit. As he affirms, wills and realises himself in his totality, he sets to work and performs his work. He would be present only like a stone, or would be moved merely like a plant, or would move himself merely like an animal, ifhe did not move according to the hierarchy of his own specific being, and did not therefore realise himself in that synthesis. To do this is the incidental service of work required of him. By working, he expresses and proves himself before God as His human creature, making himself known to God, and knowing himself, as the being whom God in His fatherly providence wills to preserve, accompany and rule in order that he might see His kingdom, experience His grace and become its witness. An obvious delimitation must be noted as a precautionary measure. Man does not do anything special by working. He has no r~ason to congratulate himself that he is not lazy. Work does not make him a second God. Nor is it God's work that he continues, completes and executes. For we cannot properly classifYas work in this sense that which God does as Creator and Lord of the world. Work is a form of human obedience to the command of God and a fulfilment of the law of human nature. But God's action as Creator and Lord does not fulfil any command; it is not a mere result of His being and essence; it does not take place in virtue of any inner or outer duty and obligation; it is the action of His free, omnipotent love. Conversely, we cannot classifY human work as a divine act. For it is not really a creation but a movement within the created world. It is not really rule but the execution of a divine direction. Nor can the divine creation and rule be continued, supplemented or executed by a creaturely movement. We may certainly maintain that when human work takes place in the service and under the blessing of God it is a proof of the goodness of God's creation and a confirmation of the wisdom of His providence. But we cannot possibly maintain that the creation and providence of God need this proof. For only of the free and superabundant grace of God can man prove himself and therefore the works of God and the divine goodness and wisdom. Again, it would be highly arrogant and materially more than doubtful to maintain that God's work is improved or adorned by human labour. Of what results of human labour could one really say this with any confidence? Let us rejoice that it also does not lie in our power to devastate God's world by our labour. It was poor theology, therefore, which led Karl Holl to write (Aufs. z. Kgsch., Vol. I, 1923,261 f.): "In the supreme sense all human work is simply the mask behind which God Himself works." This is said to be the view of Luther. Luther is also said to be the first to proclaim "work for work's sake" (cf. p. 273,474), not thinking it right to alternate between two ways of thinking, i.e., work in dependence on God and also in freedom over against him, but seeking rather to experience "the one in and under the other." That this was really Luther's view sounds highly improbable to me. And there can be no doubt that these statements are misleading because they obscure the difference between God and the creature and their respective work. The work required of man, as an element in the service of God, cannot take place for its own sake. It cannot, then, be "work for work's sake," but only work to the glory of God. When it may be this, it is so in all its creatureliness as man's equivocal hUlnan answer to God's creative and ruling action. Hence it is not a mask, a strange form of the divine action, "in and under" which the action of God Himself must be

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sought and found. God's action never takes place "in and under." It certainly takes place "with" man's activity, but also above and in face of it. It suffices for man's undeserved glory that he may serve the glory of God in the form of a human answer. Yet it is pure assumption to suppose that this human activity is secretly identical with the action in which God Himself asserts and magnifies His glory. I only wish that I could be certain that the thoughtful contribution of GustafWingren (Evang. Theol.jahrg., 1950-51,39 f.) under the title "Der Sinn der Arbeit" amounted in substance to anything better than or at least different from what is said by Holl. I must admit, however, that I cannot really see this.

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What is it that God does in the work of His providence preserving and ruling the world? Strictly speaking, He simply remains faithful to Himself and to His creature in its existence in time as its Lord and Creator. The creature needs this. That he continually bestows it is the work of His providence. Again, what is it that man does when in obedience to the command of God the Creator he works? Strictly speaking, he is simply faithful to God and to himself as God's human creature, actively affirming his own existence as such in the form of the fulfilment of that synthesis for which he is destined by his nature. He thus acknowledges in his work the difference between his existence and that of God, and therefore the difference between his activity and God's. Work understood as an act of self-affirmation is also an act of self-moderation on the part of the creature. Understood as the fulfilment of that synthesis, work is the typically terrestrial event, the typically earthly and creaturely act, which distinguishes man as the centre of the earthly creation. This is its dignity. In no sense is it heavenly or divine. When it tries to be, it can only be demonic. We have also to remember that if God Himself is faithful to Himself as Creator and Lord and therefore to His creature, this is the circumference of His action which has its centre and goal in the visiting of His creature in grace and the causing of His kingdom to come on earth. And when He asks man to work, He does so because man's work is the presupposition of the possibility of his obeying and serving as a witness to this particular activity in co-operation with the ministry of the Christian community. As, therefore, the work of divine providence does not take place for its own sake but in that teleological connexion, so man's work cannot be done for its own sake but only in the teleological connexion which it is given by God. If it were to be done for its own sake, this would mean man's being his own end and goal as God in the totality of His action is His own end and goal. Man would then exist in order that in the act of that synthesis of soul and body or spirit and nature he might express himself in the work of culture. But this is out of the question. It is true that in human work, and therefore in the act of that synthesis, man does express himself. It is true that what is called human culture is produced in it. It is true that in it there is built up an apparently independent cosmos of human capacity, enterprise and achievement, of human attainments, goods and values, as the goal of all previous work and the presupposition of all future work. It is plain enough that this construction and its history and current form conceal heaven, i.e., the upper and higher cos190

3. The Active Life

mos, from man, replacing it and thus causing him to think that he must see in them the greatest and most glorious and powerful reality in the creaturely world, and indeed the meaning of the world as a whole. It is plain enough that this construction conceals God Himself, so that man thinks he sees in culture with its vital individual existence the God whom he must serve. It is thus tempting to understand and assess man's work as though participation in the enterprise of culture were participation in the divine work. This would mean, of course, that man is his own end and goal, and that his work is to be done for its own sake, just as God ultimately does all that He does for His own sake. It is evident that this whole notion and its consequences will continually obtrude and establish themselves outwith the Christian view of the active human life. But it is equally evident that in the Christian view they must be extirpated. It is true that the enterprise of culture is undertaken in and through human work, so that by a certain foreshortening work can be defined as culture and culture as work. What is not true, however, is that as man expresses himself in his work he is confronted by a kind of higher essence, and that human culture is an independent cosmos with its own laws and dignity and life. This is sheer mythology. Culture stands or falls with the man who actually expresses himself in it. It is the realised sum of his possibilities, the actual projection of his reason, values and sense of what is proper or improper or good or bad-all within the framework of his actual power of comprehension and construction. It is the production of his actual thinking, willing and feeling, the mirror of his striving for law and yet also of his caprice, of his dignity yet also his ignominy, his life yet also his death. It exists only with the man who lives here and now in a specific form. It comes and goes with him. It is present only in the event of his work. It does not have the intrinsic value and existence of a hypostasis superior to him. Thus it cannot have more than an earthly character, and only by way of illusion can it conceal or replace heaven. Above all, it can have only a creaturely and not a divine character. For this reason, participation in it can have nothing to do with participation in the work of God. Human work cannot, then, be done for its own sake. We imply nothing derogatory to human work or culture if we say that in obedience to the divine command work can be done only incidentally, as a parergon EN133, in the context of the service to which man is truly and essentially called, as its indispensable presupposition in virtue of the fact that the one called is a man, and that therefore, ifhe is willing and ready for this service, he must be willing to be man, and to affirm, express and prove himself as such. In its incidental character, as this parergon EN134, work has its dignity and is itself service. As he allows himself to be called to work, man seriously accepts the fact that as a human creature, and in his being as such, he must stand at the disposal of his Lord and Creator. In the true and essential service to which he is ENl33 ENl34

secondary secondary

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called, it is a matter of himself as a human being. Yet it is also a matter of proving himself to be such by his activity. For this reason, culture is certainly a problem and a task. Is there any other way in which it could be so stringently and imperiously demanded? Culture as an end in itself will always be an extra duty which man may accept or evade. But as a parergon of th~ ergon EN135 which is truly and essentially required, it is an obligatory duty which no one who is prepared to obey the call of God can overlook or neglect. For no one can obey God without willing to be man and therefore without pulling himself together, without turning with whole-hearted loyalty to the earthly and creaturely work of this synthesis, and therefore without being prepared to work. Let us frankly admit that there can be no other reason {forwork within the framework of Christian ethics. It is an advantage of Christian ethics that it can show that the work of man is in fact commanded by God in the context of his true and essential service as a Christian. It can demonstrate the meaning and necessity of work as a parergon of that ergon. Yet there is the corresponding disadvantage that it cannot show that work is commanded, or how far it is commanded, outside this context. No independent meaning of work, no intrinsic necessity, can be proved in the framework of Christian ethics. On the contrary, the idea of an independent value and existence of human culture, and the consequent requirement of work for work's sake, can only be dismissed. This means that, strictly speaking, it is only as a Christian, only as he is claimed for co-operation in the service of the Christian community and thus knows the meaning of work, that man finds himself summoned to it. Without faith and its obedience, man's work will always stand under the shadow of the most profound uncertainty. Why is it really and finally necessary? In this uncertainty some help might perhaps be found in an ideology of culture, but even this is unlikely in most cases. Man willjust work without being able to give any decisive reason why he should, or to what end. At few points does it emerge so clearly how much he stands in need of the Gospel and what a liberation it means for him to be called by the community to the community, to come to faith and to be obedient in faith. It certainly makes a decisive difference whether a man is a Christian and may therefore know, or whether he is not a Christian and cannot know, the meaning and necessity of his work in connexion with the true and essential service which he is under obligation to render as man. We do not say this in depreciation of the work which is actually performed always and everywhere, and often very ably and very well, by people who do not see this connexion. The connexion which the Christian may see exists even where it is not yet or no longer seen by others. It does not rest upon the faith and obedience of Christians. It is established by divine providence. Irrespective of whether it is recognised and acknowledged by us men or not, it rests on the nexus of God's will, on the connexion between creation and the ENl35

primary task

3. The Active Life covenant. It rests on the fact that God's sovereignty over the whole world and all men has its centre and aim in the coming of His kingdom. The objective teleology of this connexion is the basis of the fact that God has created man as man, that He has ordained and equipped him for human existence, for its active affirmation and therefore for work, and that as man and as worker, whether he recognises it or not, man is already engaged in preparation for the true and essential service to which God wills to call him with the coming of His kingdom. It is the wisdom, goodness and power of God's providence that he does not even consider releasing man from the teleology in which He has created him. As certainly as God is the Creator and Lord, there is no human existence for its own sake nor work for work's sake. What appears as such is only sin as the flood of human uncertainty and illusion. But sin cannot alter the faithfulness with which God never ceases to acknowledge human existence as He has willed and created it. Nor can it alter the factual orientation of all human work on the service for which man is truly and essentially determ~ned, on the work of faith and its obedience as the opus proprium EN136 intended for man. When man affirms himself as such, and is thus at work, he may be entangled in great uncertainty and error regarding its meaning and necessity, but he is already accepted into this service. He is thus protected by the blessing of God, who knows what He has in view for him and does not withhold it because it is still concealed from him. No one can show this connexion but God Himself in His own good time. Even Christian ethics can only indicate that it exists; it cannot demonstrate it. Hence the Christian knows that all work, even that of the non-Christian, has meaning and necessity as ordained by divine providence with a view to this goal. He regards the work of all men as their preparation for the service in which he is engaged as a Christian. Thus he can never dream of trying to depreciate the work of the non-Christian as such. For he knows the value which it possesses before God equally with his own. He will regard it exactly as he does his own, knowing that it, too, is done in that service and therefore under God's blessing. He will not be surprised if he must often acknowledge to his shame that, notwithstanding the utter absence of gratitude with which it is done, it is obviously better done than his own, and better adapted to prepare and make possible the true and essential thing which must be done. In face of it, he will be radically and unhesitatingly prepared to give it the respect and esteem which it deserves, and therefore to co-operate with it as may be required, because he believes in God's effective rule over all creatures and understands this, too, as a human response to the divine action. Yet he cannot give any other explanation of its meaning and necessity than that it happens objectively in this connexion. For the Christian there can be no question of an appreciation of work on the basis of a general concept of labour and EN136

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~ 55. Freedom for Life culture, whether in respect of his own work or that of others. Such appreciation, then, can have no place in Christian ethics but can only be excluded in confidence that this is really in the best interests of work itself. The restriction for which we contend in respect of the place to be assigned to work is suggested by the fact that the affirmation of human existence which is to be achieved in it has first and supremely the character of a simple act of self-preservation. It is true enough that work is culture, and that every act of work is an act of that significant synthesis corresponding in the terrestrial sphere to the structure of human being. It may also be true that a man selects and performs a particular work because it interests him, because he considers it important, because it is so important that he devotes himself to it. It may be true also that he does this because he thinks he is adapted to perform this task, because it promises to give free rein to his powers and inclinations. Yet first and generally and much more simply what is basically at issue in all fields of human work is the desire of men to "prolong" their own lives and those of their relatives, i.e., to maintain, continue, develop and mould them, to secure and hold at the common table of life a place in closest keeping with their desires and requirements, or, in less grandiose terms, to earn their daily bread and a little more. It is for this that soul and body, head and hand and heart and hand must meet and work together in various combinations in all the different departments of human work. It is with this in view that we find this or that type of work interesting and think that we are ordained and adapted to it. Thomas Aquinas (S. theol., II 2, quo 187, art. 3c) opened his description of the divine of work with the observation that it must be done ad victum quaerendumEN138. From this standpoint work can be defined with C. Stange ("Die Ethik der Arbeit," Z.f syst. Theol., 1927, 703 f.) as "the strenuous exertion of man to secure the goods necessary for life." This is true of all occupations. Even the parson would do well to remember with no false sense of shame that he, too, has to earn his bread and that "strenuous exertion" is thus required of him. ordinatioEN137

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A sense of shame, and therefore the attempt to gloss over this basic motive in favour of a higher, can only be false in all cases. For what is there to be ashamed of? The active affirmation of human existence obviously means at bottom that man bestirs himself to do what he can to guarantee his existence. To be able to serve he must live, and therefore he must find a guarantee of his existence. Again, he cannot serve or give himself to service unless he belongs to himself and is thus independent. But to be independent he must do what he can, within the limits of what is possible, to guarantee his existence. The limits within which he can do this are narrowly defined. God alone can give man the decisive thing and most of the other things necessary for existence. Nor can he dispense with the goodwill and co-operation of his fellows. Nevertheless, at least in days of health and strength, there is a sphere in which he himself can EN137 EN138

ordinance to gain the means of living

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3. The Active Life seek to guarantee his existence and therefore to create the presupposition of his service as an independent man. The sphere is small, but large enough for the purpose. His dependence on God does not affect the independence which he needs and must secure and preserve. And ifhe is honestly bent on securing and preserving this independence because otherwise he cannot serve, then he will see no violation of it if he lets himself be aided and assisted by others. Indeed, his dependence on God would be an oppressive dominion, the help of others would mean servitude and degradation, and he himself would be incapable of service, ifhe were not interested in his independence and did not honestly do what he could to secure his existence. The small sphere which is left for him has to be filled, and its filling is the work required of him. It is in this sense that Paul urges Christians to work. They are to study to be quiet to do their own business (7TpaOOELV TO. ;:SLa), to work with their hands and to live honestly in face of the outside world, in order that they should not have to need or ask anything from it (1 Thess. 4 1 If. ). Paul insists that if they are unwilling to work, they should not eat. He has heard of the disorderly conduct (aTaKTwS' 7TEpL7TaTELv) of some among them. He cannot call this Epya'EoBaL EN139 but only 7TEpLEpya'EOBaL. ("superfluous busyness"). He thus commands "in the Lord Jesus" that they should labour in quietness and eat their bread (2 Thess. 3l0f.). Even more severely he can write: "Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth" (Eph. 428). It is to be noted that, apart from the places in which Paul speaks of his own work as an artisan, these are the only injunctions in the New Testament in which work is directly commended. It is also to be noted how soberly it is commended in these three passages. Man must work to live. For the sake of his inner and outer independence (~ovx{a EN140), he is required not to busy himself in useless matters but to care for his life. Nor is he to live as an unlawful recipient, but as a free giver. It is for these reasons that the work of his hands is demanded. (~ovxa'ELv),

Work, however, is not just any activity for the procuring of the various means of livelihood. Thus the command to live the active life implies far more than simply the requirement that man should go and play his part in some possible or suitable form to preserve, safeguard, develop and fashion his existence. The saying in Eph. 428 reminds us that theft, or gain through falsehood and deception, or crude or subtle violence, might at a pinch be one of these forms. Among those who gain a livelihood we have also to number the vagabonds and rentiers whom W. Herrmann (lac. cit., p. 192 f.) rather severely classifies together, declaring them to be harmful elements in society and polluters of the atmosphere of public life. Again, when Paul referred to 7TEpLEpya'EoBaL EN14l, he might well have had in view the kind of activity which is somehow profitable to those concerned, which is not actually criminal or expressly injurious, but which is intrinsically useless and superfluous. Such activity does exist, but it is very different from the work which is commanded.

We have defined work as the active affirmation of human existence, i.e., the human affirmation which man himself has to make. This entails a limitation EN139 EN140 EN141

working quiet superfluous

busyness

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~ 55. Freedom for Life and regulation of the activity ,,,,hich serves subsistence. We are thinking of the telos of human work. This gives rise to an important decision in respect of what can or cannot be regarded as the work which is commanded and which is therefore right. If work is to serve the preservation, safeguarding, development and fashioning of human life in order that this for its part may be available and usable in the service of man as a witness to the kingdom of God, then work cannot consist in an activity which, while it might be calculated to prolong the existence of a few, is not a genuinely human activity serving the prolongation of humanity, and cannot therefore be regarded as creating the presupposition of the service required of man. Work, then, must be more than an activity accidentally achieved by man. It must also be-and this cannot be taken for granted-an activity which is specifically human in character. According to Ps. 10421 the lions also roar after their prey and seek from God the meat needed to sustain them. But according to the significant distinction in v. 20, this takes place in the darkness of night, "wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth." When "the sun ariseth," however, "they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens" (v. 22). And then "man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening" (v. 23). As compared with the wayin which the lions seek and find their subsistence, this is an activity of a very differen t order.

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The work required of man is the human form of prolonging life as distinct from many activities which may also, and very lucratively, serve to prolong life, which may also be "strenuous," but the humanity of which is highly questionable and perhaps rather more than questionable. We must now consider some of the criteria by which to define what is work in the serious sense because it is commanded and right. 1. We may begin with the formal but by no means unimportant criterion that work is the prolongation of life in the form of striving in which man sets himself certain ends and does his best to attain them. We shall return later to the problem of fixing these ends. There is no doubt that the world of human work is one of ends in which individually or in totality, ostensibly or in truth, seemingly or in reality, it is a question of the preservation, safeguarding, development and fashioning of human life. Man works as he integrates himself at some point into this world of ends and does his best to attain one of the ends envisaged in it. His own part, however, necessarily means his best ifhe does not merely seem to work, namely, his best for this particular end and as measured by it: not, then, a maximum or optimum of his capacity; not a gigantic effort; but the maximum effort corresponding to this end and necessary for its attainment. The synthesis in which he has to express his human nature thus takes on the form which it must have if this end is to be achieved. Man is not merely present in body and soul but is immersed in the matter in hand. We may thus call this criterion of the work demanded the criterion of objectivity. The animal, too, strives for definite ends in its life. But it seems that it does so only as it lives according to its nature and follows fixed impulses. Objectivity is not a problem for it; it lies in its very nature. Man, however, sets ends for 196

3. The Active Life himself, and these are always new, or they are the same in a different way. In setting them, man binds and commits himself to them. And to attain them, he not only can but must immerse himself in these particular ends, orientating himself on them, allowing them fully to engage him, concentrating upon them. He must devote himself to them. Only then does he work in a serious sense, obeying the commandment according to which he should work. Human work in all its branches is rightly done if done with the appropriate objectivity. There will be differences in the various spheres of human work at the various times and stages of the history of the process of human labour and among the various workers. But the attainment of the particular ends demands from every worker the observance of a definite rule of the game. This rule will always present itself in new forms. It will always have to be discovered afresh by man. But it is objectively present in every purpose, claiming all who turn to it, demanding from them the complete subordination, the full surrender and yet also the total freedom of those who are totally committed, if they are to work seriously and not just for the sake of appearances. This criterion is as keen as a blade. If we really wan t to do something for the prolongation of life, and therefore to be present in the world of work, and consequently of ends, with the claim to a good place or seat at the table of life, yet we are not prepared to study the rules for the attainment of our chosen end, or do not care if we break them or substitute for them the rules for a very different end, then we do not do objective work but are dilettantes or bunglers and perhaps do not even work at all. The question of the work which is commanded and therefore right may thus be put in the sharper form: Does the ostensible worker know what he wills and will what he knows? At this point there is a legitimate place for the righteousness of works elsewhere suspect in theology. Right work is righteous work, i.e., work which to the best of its ability does justice to each specific task and end; whereas dilettante or botched work, however profitable or well-meaning in other respects, and whatever the effort incurred, cannot possibly be right work. This is not the whole story. Yet the fact remains, with reservations in respect of our future positive deliberations but with none at all negatively, that all objective work, no matter what the object, has the advantage that it might be right work and therefore obedience to the divine command, whereas all dilettante or botched work, however high and noble its purposes and however rich its material profit, cannot possibly be right and is not therefore obedience. I once had two experiences closely related in time. The' first was on a Saturday evening when I attended a variety show which was perfect in all its items and therefore, so far as I could see, executed with a real righteousness of works. The second was on the following Sunday morning when I listened to an extremely poor sermon, a real piece of theological bungling. Could I resist the impression that, formally at least, the right thing had been done at the place of very secular amusement and not at the place where the Gospel is preached and worship offered? Vengeance is swift if we think that the service of the Christian community is not also a human activity,that it does not fall under the concept of work and the

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~ 55. Freedom for Life question of right work, and that theological and ecclesiastical work does not also possess its own distinctive orientation on an end and the resultant objectivity. Vengeance is swift if in virtue of the Holy Spirit we think that we need not do our best in the same modest but definite sense in which this is almost taken for granted by the children of the world and thus constitutes a promising aspect of so much secular activity. What is it that we are told in Lk. 168? "And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely."

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It is clear that the distinction between objective and unobjective work does not lend itself to precise and comprehensive formulation in every conceivable instance. Not everything that looks like the strictest observance of the rules is really done objectively. Nor is every dilettante as such or in every respect a bungler. Here, too, the first might be last and the last first. God alone knows definitely and irrefutably who or when someone is or is not heart and soul in a thing. The fact that God does know, however, means that the distinction between objective and-unobjective is drawn and must be taken into account. The reference is primarily to the technical aspect of work. Yet we cannot say that this is only a technical question. Precisely as such it can be the decisive ethical question. Whatever our work or its particular purpose, we are either usable or useless servants. We are either heart and soul in a thing or we take things easily. Tertium non daturEN142. God knows perfectly well whether we are heart and soul in a matter, or whether we are merely playing at it. 2. As all work serves subjectively the 'prolongation of the life of the worker, so objectively it is designed to promote more or less urgent universal or individual conditions, advancements, ameliorations, illuminations and even perhaps adornments of human existence. Man must co-operate in promoting these things in order to play his part in caring for his own existence. They constitute the kingdom of ends which, variously fashioned according to time and place and historical circumstances, is as such the kingdom of human work. Co-operating in their creation, each must play his part and find his own niche. But what is meant by this part? What must his co-operation be, the work which is required of him and which is therefore right? Is it an adequate definition to say that his part is that which is most useful to him in the prolongation of his own life? Or, as we have just seen, is it his best in relation to the end actually chosen by him? There is obviously raised at once the question of these ends and therefore of their selection. It is certainly a matter of promoting or procuring certain conditions of human existence. But what are these conditions? Some might be mentioned which are not serious conditions, or even conditions at all. Man can also have questionable, invalid, perverse and corrupt needs. He can seek advancements, ameliorations, illuminations and adornments of his existence which are not really needs at all but the very opposite. Is it worth while, even materially, to co-operate in promoting them? Is it necessary or even legitimate, is it not perhaps forbidden, to try to prolong one's life by co-operation in promoting them? Is what is forbidden made legitEN142

There is no third possibility

3. The Active Life imate so long as I devote myself to it with the greatest objectivity? The question must be pressed: What ends am I actually serving as I work with what it is hoped will be true objectivity? In these ends is it truly and genuinely a matter of the conditions of human existence? This leads us, then, to our second criterion. We might call it that of the worth of human work. To use a familiar expression, is our work "honest" work? This is not decided by whether it is higher or lower work according to the usual standards, e.g., whether it is done in independence or in dependence on others, whether it is administrative or executive, whether it is more intellectual or more mechanical, whether it serves spiritual or material needs and interests, or whether it relates primarily to persons or to things. These distinctions of light and shadow all have their own importance, but they are only relative and even deceptive in relation to the value of work. One can be an honest worker on what is thought to be the side of shadow, and an extremely dishonest one on that of light. There is no reason for boasting if by these standards one's work is superior, nor for bemoaning the fact if it is inferior. For the promotion of the conditions of human existence both the superior and the inferior functions of work are equally indispensable. All work requires some kind of effort, all must be performed with its own objectivity, and therefore all can have its own dignity. The question of its human worth or honesty is decided by what is willed and purposed and effected, i.e., by whether human existence is served, or not served, or perhaps even ignored by it. I was once watching a remarkably dextrous chain artist, and when his work was done and a collection being taken, I heard him quote Luke 107: "The labourer is worthy of his hire." He was right inasmuch as he had done his work well. Yet we cannot deny that there are forms of art which, if they are not useless in the sense that they yield the artist what one can hardly grudge him in the circumstances, hardly leave the impression from a detached standpoint that they are making any significant contribution to human existence. Are there not indeed whole industries devoted to amusement, to luxury or holiday needs and to wholesale and retail distribution, not to speak of the many categories of especially higher officials and the whole range of administration and office work, concerning which we may assume that the work is often performed diligently and objectively, and yet we cannot avoid posing the question: Cui bonoEN143?, but are rather left with the impression of busy idleness, of what Paul described as 7TEpLEpya~Ea(}aL EN144 rather than of what we can truly and properly call honest work? More modestly, is there not even in the field of scholarship a great deal of so-called work, e.g., the effort put into examinations for examinations' sake in one's best years, or the work done on the conveyor belt which brings up a constant stream of dissertations from the libraries only to return them, and sometimes finally, to the same shelves, or a proportion of literary labour, which is obviously designed and undertaken for the sake of some return, but which does not contribute quite so obviously to the true well-being of man? Nor is it merely that certain aims are useless, for there are also those which are quite out of place and even injurious and ruinous both to the worker and to those around. The early Church regarded the activity not merely of keepers of brothels or servants of pagan shrines

EN143 EN144

To whose benefit superfluous busyness

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but also of actors, gladiators and charioteers as enough to warrant exclusion from the community. Tertullian would have gone further and prohibited Christians from commerce or secular teaching, which was then inevitably associated with the dissemination of knowledge of the heathen gods. We may differ as to details, but it was quite right and natural that the Christianity of the time should see and express the problem of a limit to be observed at this point.

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Ifwe are not to leave the world of work and workers to themselves as though they were only links in a great nexus of fate in which there is no responsibility, there is need to put quite sharply the question of worthy or valuable work which serves the cause of humanity. What are we to think of all the work which is thought worth while, and which is therefore done by those involved, only because they can definitely count on the stupidity and superficiality, the vanity and bad taste, the errors and vices of numerous other people? What are we to think of all the work to which people are drawn only because there are others who are prepared to ruin themselves either physically or morally? What are we to think of the work which flourishes in one place only because men elsewhere are afflicted with unemployment and therefore with want? What are we to think, as we must ask in relation to the problem of war, of direct or indirect participation in the work of an armaments factory, the achievements of which in so-called peace have often proved to be one of the most potent causes of war? Finally, what are we to think of work which, while it is intrinsically neither useful nor harmful, presents so unworthy an aspect just because it is directed neither to good nor evil, nor indeed to man at all, but past him to a purely illusory yet dynamic and, in its conjunction of the two, almost unequivocally demonic process which consists in the amassing and multiplying of possessions expressed in financial calculations (or miscalculations), i.e., the "capital" which in the hands of the relatively few, who pull all the strings, may equally well, in a way wholly outwith the control of the vast majority and therefore quite arbitrarily or accidentally, be a source of salvation or perdition for whole nations or generations? It is evident that we cannot address most of these questions, and especially the last and most important, exclusively or even primarily to employees, for in the present organisation (or disorganisation) of the process of labour, and in the light of the work offered to-day even in the ranks of those who seem to be but are not genuinely independent, the only choice which employees often have is between starvation and doing work which either does not benefit the cause of mankind, is detrimental to it, or is completely alien, being performed in the service of a sinister and heartless and perpetually ambiguous idol. It cannot be denied that innumerable people have no voice at all in this kind of question. Therefore there must be addressed all the more acutely, and increasingly so the higher we move, to those who are employers, i.e., who can offer to others the work which for better or worse they must accept if they are not to go hungry, the question whether it is really because of some higher necessity or unavoidable pressure under which they stand that they have no other or better 200

3. The Active Life or more worthy work to offer and give. Is it really the case that the useless or harmful or neutrally idolatrous forms of production in which they now employ them are the only aims which they have to set? And if all employers merely shrug their shoulders and argue that they can see no other possibility and therefore have to accept the situation as it is, then the question is to be addressed the more acutely to the state, to the government or Parliament, whether it is in fact politically possible or legitimate to allow the so-called economy to be administered in this free, or rather ineffectual, manner. Does it really make sense to drain geographical marshes but to leave untouched, or even to allow to increase, the huge morass of dishonest work in which millions must be daily engulfed up to the neck? If men, to live at all, must constantly work for meaningless ends and therefore dishonestly, can we truly expect them to be free and freedom loving? In these circumstances, is it not almost inevitable that the Marxist tyranny should finally overwhelm us, with its new and very different injustices and calamities, to teach us mores, true ethics, in this respect? And if politicians have no advice, and will not accept any, then the question must be addressed with final acuteness to the whole of human society. For what is ultimately at stake is the cause of society, its continuation or ruin as such. And in the last resort, this society has the politicians and the great or small economic leaders that it condones and therefore deserves. In the last analysis, it is society which has to grant work and define its aims. In this matter it cannot delegate its responsibility to others, particularly its responsibility for so much mean, dependent and mechanical work, and for the fact that so much of it is not only badly paid but is meaningless and nonsensical work which poisons and undermines society at its roots by rendering man's very existence meaningless and nonsensical. Ifit is true that man grows with his higher ends, it is also true that he degenerates if the ends for which he labours become progressively futile. This means, however, that the question is again posed to the individual; and there is place for the reminder that without detriment to its social character it is still to a very large extent the individual question of the employee. There is some meaningful, valuable and rewarding work, as, for example, agriculture, which in modern times is not really refused under pressure of necessity but arbitrarily; and there is a type of meaningless and nonsensical work, especially much urban work, which in our day is arbitrarily preferred, sought and accepted. When we say arbitrarily, we mean that it is chosen because it seems to be more comfortable or more remunerative to the individual employee, that in fateful forgetfulness he will not put a question which he might very well put, namely, the question of what he is after, of what ends he can and should espouse, and that he thus contributes to the fact that the offer of meaningless and nonsensical and worthless work constantly increases. It cannot be contested that even to-day there is in this matter a good deal of unused freedom as well as compulsion, and that the freedom which remains might well be extended. If the great mass of employees themselves think and judge in what is 201

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~ 55. Freedom for Life at bottom a "capitalistic" or unthinking way in relation to the question of ends, we need not be surprised if the proponents of these ends, the relatively few employers and politicians, do so to an even greater extent. The fatal compulsion of the present offer of labour might be eased or even very largely removed if the individual employees both small and great would simply realise their personal responsibility and again put to themselves the question of honest work and seek to choose their work in an honest consideration of this question instead of hastily ignoring it. The witness of Christian ethics has many opportunities to exercise influence in this respect both on the social and political side and more especially the individual and personal. In its own way the older Church saw the problem and tried to solve it. The Christian community to-day must also learn to see it, and must not be at a loss for certain provisional answers. We may add that a casuistical distinction between work which is worthy and honest and work which is not is neither possible nor legitimate. To the question whether a certain type of work is worthy or unworthy a different answer might have to be given at different times and places, from different standpoints and for different people. [534]

As an instructive example, we may cite the verdict of August Bebel (Die Frau und der ed. 1913, 1,4°9 f.): "Strictly speaking, the worker who drains sewers to protect humanity from unhealthy miasmas is a very useful member of society, whereas the professor who teaches falsified history in the interests of the ruling class, or the theologian who seeks to befog the brain with supernatural, transcendental doctrines, is an extremely harmful individual." We must be careful not to be guilty of what is here stated to be the activity of theologians, and if we cannot do better than this we should make all haste to become good drainers of sewers. Similarly, if the professor of history cannot do better than teach history which is falsified in the interests of a class, to the sewers with him also! Sozialismus,

Caution is needed, however, in the advancement either negatively or positively of universal categories. There are some kinds of work which will always, everywhere and in all circumstances have the advantage that the work in question is meaningful, as there are others against which it must be urged with a high degree of probability that the work is meaningless and nonsensical. Yet the decisive task of Christian ethics is not to discover and assess such universal categories but to establish the fact that always, everywhere and in all circumstances a boundary has been drawn in this respect, too, between work which is commanded and legitimate and work which is forbidden and illegitimate, that such categories do therefore exist, that always, everywhere and in all circumstances they must be discovered, and that a choice must be made between them, some being affirmed and others rejected. Thus, at a specific time and in a specific situation Christian ethics is forced to look in a specific direction on both sides as indicated in the present discussion. Nevertheless, in every time and situation, and therefore in ours too, the final and concrete verdict is not a matter for Christian ethics, but simply for the living Christian ethos in the community. That the community must take up this problem to-day, and define its attitude to it, is our present point. 202

3. The Active Life 3. We now turn from the question of the aim or aims of work back to the problem of the basic motive for it operative to some extent in all of us. The affirmation and assurance of our existence is at stake. We must take this as comprehensively as possible. In work, as the New Testament observes with astonishing sobriety, it is a matter of earning our daily bread-the same bread for which we are commanded to pray in the discipleship of jesus and the fellowship of His Spirit, seeing that without it we cannot exist at all for the cause of God, or pray for the hallowing of His name, the coming of His kingdom, the doing of His will on earth as it is done in heaven. Yet as in adopting the first three petitions we are as it were placed automatically in God's service and called to be His witnesses, so in taking up the fourth petition we are automatically called to work. Ora!EN145 and therefore Labora!EN146 The catechisms are right, of course, when without disloyalty to the concrete concept of "daily bread" they give to it a more extensive interpretation. It is a question of the existence which is to be received from God in prayer and exercised, maintained and guaranteed by man himself in work. It is a question of the place of each of us in the sun. What is at stake .in work is that each should preserve, develop and fashion his human existence in its total range as such. If any will not work, neither should they eat. The need of food and drink is a basic part of this. Yet according to the rather patriarchal description of Luther it also includes "clothes, shoes, house, farm, field, cattle, money (!), property, a godly spouse, godly children, godly servants, honest and loyal magistrates, fine weather, peace, health, order, honour, good friends and neighbours and such like." We need not waste time translating these concepts into modern terms. They are all either indispensable or at least highly desirable for the existence of all of us, and in some form they can and should be not only the object of our prayers but also the aim and goal of our work. We must have a concern for them in our work, though it is to be hoped with the necessary objectivity and a worthy individual aim. We seek to obtain them in the form and fulness corresponding to our requirements and desires, not in an active affirmation of our existence, which is futile, but receiving our reward as they accrue to us and thus "earning" our existence by our work. But the phrase "our existence by our work" brings us to a third problem of work. It shows us that there are others in addition to us who are seeking to earn their existence by their work with no less necessity, to no less extent, no less rightfully and no less according to the command of God. When we understand our work in terms of our basic motive, how will it stand, therefore, in relation to theirs as determined by the same motive? How can there be co-existence between their desire and ours, between their work and ours? They are unquestionably our fellow-men. We cannot be men at all unless we live with them, unless we see and hear and understand them as our fellow-men, unless we are assisted by and assist them. Hence there EN145 EN146

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can be no doubt that in our work, if it is the work which God has commanded and therefore right, we must ask the question whether and to what extent it is human, i.e., in the special sense offellow-human. This gives us the third criterion which calls for consideration, namely, the humanity of human work. Why can the praise of work in Christian ethics be only a muffled praise, for all that it is so definite? A priori and positively, as we have seen, it is because the true and primary form of the active life demanded by the divine command is participation in the service of the Christian community. But a posterioriEN147 and negatively, as we must now add, it is because work as it now presents itself in the history and present state of the process of human labour, and as with a few limited exceptions it is the work of us all, conforms so little to the criterion of humanity that we are well advised to be as modest as possible in this matter. For in the light of this criterion it is immediately apparent that work has to be done, and that it corresponds to the command of God the Creator, but that in doing it we participate almost universally and inevitably in a contradiction of the meaning and intention of the command-a contradiction which is far too crass to allow any overevaluation of our activity. The criterion of humanity! Here at least it is surely clear to us that there is a great gulf between the command of God and our observance of it, that even in our best activity we are perverted men in a perverted world. Human work can and should take place in co-existence and co-operation. But in reality it does so in isolation and mutual opposition. It should provide each of us with our daily bread in peace, offering us an opportunity for the development of our particular abilities and the corresponding accomplishments, and thus liberating us for the service which provides the real meaning of our lives. But the reality in the world of labour is the secret or far too open struggle for existence. It is work, i.e., the active affirmation of existence, in the isolation and abstraction of one's own needs, wishes and desires, in the ignoring and even the deliberate thwarting and suppressing of those of others. It is inhuman humanity in isolation from and opposition to one's fellows. To-day, at all events, an unholy optimism is required to miss the great violation of which all of us are more or less guilty in our work, and therefore to express otherwise than in a very muffled and broken and limited way the well-known statement that work is worship. We cannot tell from the texts whether the noticeable lack of real enthusiasm for work in the relatively few utterances of the biblical authors is negatively connected with the fact that they perceived this reality of human work, i.e., its almost universal determination by the inhuman and therefore ungodly straggle for existence. Symptoms of this evil and grievous state of affairs were certainly not lacking in the work of antiquity, whether in Mediterranean lands or elsewhere. We catch a momentary glimpse of it inJames 54: "Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries ... are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth." St. Paul, therefore, does not speak in agreement with the presuppositions and conditions of the current process of labour when he counsels Christians in 1 Corinthians 1024 and par.: "Let no man seek his own, EN147

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3. The Active Life but every man another's wealth," or in Galatians 62: "Bear ye one another's burdens." On the other hand, there is no direct antithesis or criticism, perhaps because it is so self-evident, perhaps because it is tacitly included in the exhortation of Romans 122 that in the life and service of the community Christians should not be conformed to the fashion of the world. The real shadow which hovers over work according to Paul, in remarkable agreement with the verdict of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament, is that of the transitoriness and indeed the passing nature of the whole "fashion of this world" (1 Cor. 731). There can also be no doubt, however, that a view which would deny the inhumanity of the real course of man's working life cannot be demonstrated from the Bible. It may well be that the Reformers, who gave a certain stamp of approval to the description of work as worship, did not sense the problem quite so acutely as they might have done in the 16th century because it was to some extent concealed in the established economic order present before them. In connexion with God's rest from all His works (Gen. 23), Luther can say: Nobis labor est molestiaEN148; (WA., 42, 62, 19); and in his Sermon on Good Works he can maintain: "In Adam we are all condemned to work" (WA., 6, 271, 35). Again, his exposition of man's work in Paradise (Gen. 215-16), not to speak of that of fallen man (Gen. 317-19), is one long complaint, softened by touches of humour, that our work has become very different from that of Adam in Paradise (WA., 42,77, 15 f.). Calvin, too, in his interpretation of the work required of man in Paradise has disproportionately more to say of the urgently needed discipline of this command than of the oblectatioEN149 intended with every command (C.R., 23, 44). The illusions in this matter are really those of a later period, namely, and rather unexpectedly, the 19th cen tury, when the form which the labour process has progressively assumed since the 16th century ought to have served as an urgent warning against them.

We cannot yield to this enthusiasm. For quite apart from every other consideration, the gulf which has always existed between the command of God and its human fulfilment, particularly in regard to the humanity which ought to characterise work well done, has now become more glaring and accusing than ever with the great intensification in all respects of human labour. There are two things from which man must allow himself to be restrained if in the light of the criterion of humanity his work is to be done in obedience to God. The first is the thoughtless opinion that he can work to procure his daily bread, to satisfy his vital claims, and thus for himself, without doing so in fellowship with others who have the same aims, and therefore without making room for their work and the earning of their livelihood, in order that there may also be room for himself. He deceives himself more than anyone else if he refuses to do this. Without his fellows, man is not man at all but only a shade of man. If he seeks to earn his bread and therefore to work in abstract isolation, his existence is that of this shade. "Give us this day our daily bread," it says; and the first person plural is the natural and rational basis of all work without which it is necessarily a curse to man. This was always so, but to us to-day it ought to be even more evident than to our predecessors that work is a social act involving association and comradeship. Fundamentally, we can work aright only when we work hand in hand. The nourishing bread to be gained from EN148 EN149

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~ 55. Freedom for Life work can only be the bread broken and shared with the fellow-worker. This means that the vital claims of each are justified and capable of fufilment only to the degree that they are co-ordinated with those of the others. If they are not, the work done cannot be that of the one and the other. And if it is not their work, it cannot be their joy and blessing. If, however, we ask why it is that there is so little co-ordination of these vital claims, we come up against the second thing which man must accept as illegitimate if his work is to stand as measured by the criterion of humanity. Once again it is a matter of thoughtlessness, but this time of thoughtless opinions concerning the claims which each advances. If it were simply a matter of each claiming what he really needs, [538] then the various claims could easily be co-ordinated, each would receive what he wants, and men would not be divided but united in labour for their daily bread. What tears men apart and incites them against one another is the fact that the supposed necessity of their various wants, desires and claims has so slender a foundation. These wants need not be identical. They may vary and ~ diverge. But if they are to be mutually compatible they must rest on an inner foundation and be genuine and vital claims. It is here that the transgressions take place which imperil and eliminate the community of industry and therefore of work. It is here that the revolutions of empty and inordinate desires take place: of the lust for a superabundance which is not the natural and beautiful abundance of life but the overflow of nothingness, which does not decorate anything but only pretends to do so, like a stage-prop instead of the real thing; of the lust for possessions which will not be used even perhaps for the purposes of luxury but are desired only as a security and pledge against future use, or perhaps only for the sake of the idea of possession, as if this were a guarantee of life; of the lust for an artifically extended area of power over men and things in the form of artificial instruments, as if it were not conceit or deception to regard the acquisition of the power of even the mightiest instrument as an increase of one's own real power over life, as if man could add a single cubit to his stature. The genuine and vital claims of man are not empty and inordinate desires of this kind. Work in the service of these genuine and vital claims cannot, therefore, lose the character of peaceful co-operation. It necessarily loses this character, however, if it takes place in the service of those empty and inordinate desires. False claims cannot be co-ordinated either among themselves or with genuine claims. Hence the same is true of the work done in satisfaction of them. In this service, and to the extent that human work takes place in it, there is no brotherliness. The reign of empty and inordinate desires constitutes the real social explosive. "From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not. Ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye figh t and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts" (James 4If.).

It is the reign of empty and inordinate desires which with the first factor gives to the process of human labour its deeply sinister because deeply discord206

3. The Active Life ant aspect and therefore the character of the struggle for existence. It ought not to have this, but it does in fact have it in spite of the admirable objectivity which generally marks it and the incontestable worth of many of its individual aims. From this twofold evil root, namely, from this twofold thoughtlessness in respect of the social character of work and the true and vital necessity of the profit sought, everything else unfortunately follows, and it does so in such a way that all the complaints and accusations which do not touch the root of the matter are too late, and therefore all the remedies which may and should be considered in detail cannot be more than remedies, i.e., palliatives for the worst excrescences and attempts to remove the grossest inconveniences. To say this is not to be guilty of pessimistic quietism or defeatism. The command of God remains and is in force above and in spite of all the human perversity with which it is or is not kept. It applies even to transgressors as such. Even in the midst of their transgressions it summons them to conversion and amendment. It unquestionably demands the remedies which, because of the corruption of the root, can only be remedies, not involving the conduct required but at least attesting the need for it. Much can in fact be done to remedy the great perversity which grows out of that twofold thoughtlessness. In view of the root, it cannot be the good thing demanded, but it can at least point to it. In this field as in others there are plenty of opportunities for obedience in the midst of disobedience. These must be detected and taken. "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is si~" (James 4 17). This is valid even in the worst of circumstances. Nevertheless we cannot fail to see that the command of God aims essentially and primarily at the root, so that if a man apparently does not let himselfbe attacked there he need not be surprised ifin his work he causes both himself and others disproportionately more trouble and sorrow than joy, becoming the victim of incurable discontent and both occasioning and having to bear either directly or indirectly a good deal of suffering .. A consequence of these basic forms of thoughtlessness is that the work of one in relation to that of another cannot be a free act in which each may express himselfwithout sideward glances at his competence or capacity, and in which he may thus achieve his own purposes in peace and without anxiety. There is alwayswork which may be done in this freedom. But it is the rare and enviable exception. The process of human labour as a whole and in general bears the mark of the mutual competition of those engaged in it. Competition implies contest. This might well be fine and invigorating and exciting if it were only a matter of measuring the various prowesses and skills, if it merely involved the challenge to maximum achievements in mutual comparison, if it were concerned only with the winning of distinctions and prizes by way of recognition. Why should not the good or better or best worker deserve a prize? The sphere of human work, however, is not a playing field. Indeed, even on the modern playing field it has long since ceased to be a question of merit 207

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for the best performance. This kind of honour, the prize in a contest, ought to be no more than a by-product, a mere recognition. But the prize in the race of work-and the same thing seems to be more and more characteristic of competitive games-is an end in itself. In a sporting or other contest it may perhaps be dispensable, though gratifying to the recipient. But in the competition which controls the labour process, the prize is indispensable, or at least seems to be to those involved. For as they see it, the point at issue is no longer a mere comparison of abilities. The means has become an end. The point at issue is the genuinely or supposedly necessary result. They are competing for the necessities of life, for the higher or highest satisfaction of these necessities. The one aims to be better off than the other simply for the sake of being better off than the other. By doing better, he hopes to secure easier and ampler access to that for which the other also strives. He does it for his own advantage, and therefore inevitably to the disadvantage of the other and at the cost of the partial or even perhaps the total exclusion of the other from that which both desire. He tries to do better than the other in order that he may have greater or even complete success in competition for the promised reward. For both, the reward is no more and no less than existence itself. Hence there is no fun in this contest. It is not merely a matter of competition but of serious conflict. We may conceal this, or we may even try to justify it. Mter all, is there not a struggle for existence in the animal and vegetable world? Does not this situation carry with it an unmistakeable incentive to the highest possible effort on the part of every worker? Is not the so-called progress of civilisation and culture based on the assumption that from the very first man has had to work in this situation? Is not this situation necessary for the development of the noble gift of freedom? "A free path for the efficient!" Why not? We may even press a little further the basic forms of thoughtlessness and rashly accept the situation as a matter of course, acting according to its laws as if there could be no question of anything else. Most people do in fact opt for this nonsensical view and the corresponding activity, only occasionally and incidentally using one or other of the above arguments in justification or extenuation. But whatever our attitude, this state of conflict is in fact the situation in which human work must actually be done. It may often be eased and mitigated, and even temporarily suspended in certain cases through the decency and generosity of the combatants. Much may be done on a smaller or larger scale, as by ambulance units in time of war, to nurture, maintain and temporarily restore the victims of this situation. Above all, as there either is, or used to be, an international law standing above the belligerents in armed conflict, general and perhaps very radical and relatively effective measures may be devised and executed to set some bounds at least to the struggle, to erect some justice in the midst of injustice, to establish some limits at least between freedom and caprice, between legitimate and 208

3. The Active Life illegitimate competition, between admissible and inadmissible seizure of one's own advantage. It is clear, as we must now impress upon ourselves positively, that where the command of God is heard it will always be a summons to counter-movements of this kind. It is also clear that this must find expression in the voice of the Christian community. The community at least cannot participate in the great self-deception concerning the character of the situation. Nor can it evade the task of showing it to be the bitter fruit of a bitter root. On principle it must alwaysbe found where within the situation the possible reservations at least are made and the practicable precautions put into effect. On the other hand, we must recognise how relative is all that men can undertake and even all that Christians can say and do in this situation. Work under the sign of this competition will always imply as such work in the form of a conflict in which one man encounters another with force and cunning, and there cannot fail to be innumerable prisoners, wounded and dead. Work under this sign will always be an inhuman activity, and therefore an activity which, in spite of every conceivable alleviation or attempt at relief and order, can never stand before the command of God. So long as workers forget the fellow-humanity without which they cannot be men, and confound their vital claims with their empty and inordinate desires, their work necessarily stands under the sign of competition and therefore of conflict. Only the kingdom of God which has come and comes disperses the resultant shadows lying athwart human work, i.e., the work of a humanity which resists decisive repentance. The proclamation of this kingdom as the end of au strife is thus the central if not the exclusive service which the Christian community has to render in this matter. Yet the same basic forms of thoughtlessness have another and even worse result in the sphere of human work. The competition which reveals man's isolation and hostility is only one form of the corruption of our working life. This can take on different aspects. It can even make itself out to be fellowship and co-ordination, only to live the more shamelessly and fatally as inhumanity under this mask. Almost every kind of work, ifit is to be undertaken at all and carried out objectively and usefully, calls for some organisation and apportionment within which competition and therefore conflict seem to be formally excluded by the fact that to each is assigned his own work and therefore his own reward and livelihood. Now for the establishment of such an organisation and division of labour an impetus is required. One man must take the initiative and others will be summoned to join him if successful. The opportunity for work must be offered by some and accepted by others. Work must be according to fixed conditions and with a stated and accepted reward. The organisation of labour requires a contract between the two parties to settle conditions and wages. It may be, however, that some have over others the advantage of possessing the means of labour, the so-called means of production, i.e., the soil, raw materials, tools, machines and working capital, whereas the rest are 209

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dependent for their livelihood on the opportunities of work and reward which are offered, having no property of their own to advance except their time and ability and therefore themselves. It may be that some, undeterred by any recollection of the fellow-humanity of true work, and driven only by those blind desires, turn this advantage over others to their profit by dictating to them what is supposed to be a "free" contract of labour, not considering their vital claims but simply following their own wishes and therefore their own interests. It might be argued that not all work is performed under this kind of regime or system. Not all men have to enter into such a contract with the more powerful in order to be able to work and earn. Not all the more powerful, i.e., the owners of the means of production or employers of labour, are simply exploiters, nor are all employees under contract to them simply exploited. Nevertheless, it can hardly be denied that on the whole, at least in the West, the modern industrial process does in fact rest on the principle of the exploitation of some by others, or, to put it less dramatically, on the aiming and obtaining of a profit which accrues to the economically stronger, i.e., to the owners of the means of production, in virtue of the fact that they can turn to their own advantage the contract of labour with the economically weaker who are dependent on them, i.e., those who have nothing to offer but their time and ability, so that the former earn more than they are entitled to as those who initiate and direct the whole process, and the latter less than is commensurate with their more or less skilled but at all events indispensable co-operation and their vital needs. This is social injustice in a form which is less blatant than simple competition, which is apparently grounded in co-ordination, which may even seem to be legitimate in view of its inclusion of free and reciprocal contracts, but which is even more oppressive and provoking in its ostensible show of just ice, and can only make industrial peace the more radically impossible of attainment. The few arguments used in its favour are of much the same order as those advanced for free competition. When some men give others the opportunity of work and wages, themselves deciding the form of this opportunity as masters in their own house, should they not be lauded as benefactors? In earlier periods of this particular system of labour, this is how the matter was largely understood. Those to whom the right of private ownership of the means of production and the law of individual freedom are adamantine principles will certainly not be prepared to accept the term "exploitation" in connexion with this system. Furthermore, those who set high store by human ability will point to more than one example of enterprising men of both earlier and more recent generations who have been leaders in this kind of system, yet not in any sense drones profiting by the labour of others, but the first and perhaps the best workers in their own particular spheres. Again, those who make the progress of technical mastery their standard will ask whether, if the stimulus of this system were removed, comparable endeavours and triumphs to those which have taken place under it might still be expected. Finally, it can be urged that many of the arguments which could be brought against this system in its hey210

3. The Active Life day are now out of date, that to-day there is in any case no such thing as pure and undiluted "capitalism," and that events have falsified, and in all probability will continue to falsify, more than one of the prophecies of doom pronounced over it, e.g., the increasing enrichment of fewer and fewer wealthy persons, the developing proletarianisation of even the middle classes, and the cumulative misery of the masses, especially of the proletariat who have nothing to lose but their chains. Nevertheless, of what avail are all these arguments in face of the simple fact that this system does permit in practice and demand in principle that man should make another man and his work a means to his own ends, and therefore a mere instrument, and that this is inhuman and therefore constitutes an injustice? Here, too, there are many possible counter-movements even though the system and its injustice are accepted. In echo of the patriarchalism of earlier economic reforms, there have been and are within it many fine possibilities of free reciprocal loyalty between employer and employee which sometimes challenge and almost completely cancel its character as an active and passive exploitation. There has existed from an early date, and with increasing intensity, a genuinely disturbed and more or less understanding concern, both of society and more and more of the state, which for all the bitter complaints of the industrial world had led to attacks on the disorders of laissez jaire, to the removal of its worst features in the form of ever stricter factory legislation, and to a mitigation of its greatest severities in the form of improved sickness, accident and unemployment insurance, which rather strangely was advocated by none other than Schleiermacher as early as 1830. Again, on the part of employers there has been more than one more or less well planned and magnanimous attempt-that of the Zeiss group atJena being for a time the most famous of its kind-to break with the system by a renunciation of control by the owners and the placing of the management on a kind of co-operative basis. Above all, perhaps as the main force behind the movement, and against the background of the great and radical analysis, questioning and criticism of the system particularly associated with the name of Karl Marx, there has been the awakening of the working class to consciousness of its power when properly organised, and its internationally directed self-defence and self-assistance both politically and in the form of trades unions and co-operative societies. In short, the passage of the years has seen more than one relatively effective barrier erected against the exploitation of the weak by the strong. What we cannot say,however, is that this exploitation has been brought to an end, that there are no classes with opposing interests, and that there is therefore no more class struggle. It is doubtful-though we must leave this to the verdict of history-whether this is true even of the new and consistently socialist states of Eastern Europe, for, although the letter of the Marxist programme means that there can be no more exploiters and exploited, it does not settle the matter that there is no more private ownership of the means of production 211

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or free enterprise, or that the direction of the labour process has been transferred to the hands of the state. The injustice of the treatment of one man by another merely as a means to his own ends, as a mere instrument, once rested on a foundation of private capital, and still does so in the West. Yet it is by no means impossible, but rather indicated by many features, that this injustice can perpetuate itself in a different form on a different basis, namely, on that of a state socialism which is in fact directed by a ruling and benefit-deriving group. Again it has to be said that the command of God, to the extent that it can and will be heard, is self-evidently and in all circumstances a call for countermovements on behalf of humanity and against its denial in any form, and therefore a call for the championing of the weak against every kind of encroachment on the part of the strong. The Christian community has undoubtedly been too late in seeing this in face of the modern capitalistic development of the labour process, and it cannot escape some measure of responsibility for the injustice characteristic of this development. It hardly has any right, therefore, to lay its finger to-day on the signs that state socialism, notwithstanding its pretended abolition of this injustice, might finally amount only to a new and perhaps even crasser form of the oppression and exploitation of man by man. This mayor may not be so, but Christianity in the West has its main work cut out to comprehend the disorder in the decisive form still current in the West, to remember and to assert the command of God in face of this form, and to keep to the "left" in opposition to its champions, i.e., to confess that it is fundamentally on the side of the victims of this disorder and to espouse their cause. It need not on this account identify its message with any of the programmes advanced by these counter-movements. It will wisely refrain from doing so. Even if it should prove true that the abolition of the private ownership of the means of production and state socialism are not the panacea for social sickness which they were once declared to be, and which they are now extolled to be in Eastern Europe, in the last resort this simply means that like all other attempts at redress they, too, take place within the situation in which man is unfortunately determined to treat man and his work, not as true man, but as a useful object. The relativity of even the most radical attempt at reform in the guise of "revolution" simply proves again that whatever can be done by men or said by Christians in the direction of such attempts can have only relative significance and force. It is again made clear that the root of the troubles lies deeper, namely, in a human aberration which necessarily gives rise to the exploitation of man by man in everchanging forms-so necessarily that even the most well-meaning and rigorous attempts at countermovement can arrest and modify but not entirely remove it. This brings us back, however, to the basic forms of thoughtlessness from which man must allow himself to be restrained by the command of God if his work is to take place in obedience and therefore in peace between man and man. If man does not allow himself to be kept from forgetting the fellow212

3. The Active Life humanity without which he cannot be man, or from pursuing his empty and inordinate desires instead of his genuine and vital claims, his work will necessarily stand under the sign not merely of competition but of exploitation, of open class war, whether in its capitalistic or its socialistic guise. It does not seem to be the case, however, that man is willing to allow himself to be restrained from these basic forms of thoughtlessness. It seems that we are confronted at this point by an expression of his basic disobedience, of his final and most deep-seated antagonism to the divine command. If there were no patience of divine overruling, its consequences in competition and class war would be even worse than they actually are. If there were no divine forgiveness, man who is so obstinate in this basic failure would be eternally rejected and lost because of it. If the kingdom of God had not come on earth to be manifested one day in power and glory as His kingdom, there would be no hope at all in the social question, not even the relative hope or hopes which we continually need if, in spite of everything, we are to resolve and act and persist in the direction of those relative counter-movements, at least in immanent opposition against the system, at least in inward but constantly erupting freedom in face of the exploitation which obviously cannot be removed without great repentance, at least with a readiness to do everything we can within the evil presuppositions to mitigate the prevailing injustice and its consequences. The Christian community both can and should espouse the cause of this or that branch of social progress or even socialism in the form most helpful at a specific time and place and in a specific situation. But its decisive word cannot consist in the proclamation of social progress or socialism. It can consist only in the proclamation of the revolution of God against "all ungodliness and unrighteousness of man" (Rom. 118), i.e., in the proclamation of His kingdom as it has already come and comes. 4. We have defined work as an active affirmation of existence, and every active affirmation of existence as work. Yet not every active affirmation of life is work which can be claimed as an objective, valuable and life-sustaining realisation of ends in the context of a greater and general process of labour. The external work ascertainable as a visible and tangible achievement in field or house, workshop, office or study, rests on the presupposition, if it be done aright, that an internal work precedes and supports it, an active affirmation of life which has no visible form or result but which is a work that is executed most actively and in its own way fulfils time. It may consist only in an epistemological wrestling of man with the problems of his existence and its affirmation. It may consist only in a shaping of the will or the forming of resolutions. It may frequently seem to take place only in a strong emotional feeling. But it is the home or source from which he sets out to work or works. It is the inward work in which he embarks upon the outward, in which he ponders, plans and designs it, in which he prepares himself for its accomplishment. For man is not created as such to be merely an executive instrument. He is soul. He is subject. He is himself. If he is to work aright, if his active affirmation of life is to be

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genuine and not merely ostensible, he must also and primarily work within and upon himself, in order that on this basis he may meaningfully approach the intellectual and material things of the external world. We thus call this fourth criterion of right work the criterion of reflectivity. Reflective does not mean intuitive. In relation to work, intuitiveness is also required. We shall have to return to this later. Yet it does not come under the concept of work; it comes under that of its limitation. The inward work of reflection, however, belongs no less to the concept of work than all external performance and accomplishment. Even where it has only the form of an emotion, it demands activity and effort, but of the inward variety. And it aims at results even if these consist only in a modification of the inward attitude and mood. This is particularly the case when it is a matter of forming opinions, establishing convictions or coming to inner decisions. How could outward work be a living human activity if it were not surrounded and sustained in some near or distant or perhaps very distant relation by this inward work of reflection? And how could this reflection be serious if it were not truly work, i.e., whole-hearted activity, and not just the slumbering and dreaming of a soul left to itself. As a rider must rally his horse, if it is to break into a gallop, by a movement of his hand or foot or whole body, so man requires for work the discipline of a very active self-concentration. His indispensable reflection is this concentration. Only in this reflection can and will he assert himself as a man in his external work, doing it with the application, industry, attention and devotion which stamp it as true work. Yet neither his self-assertion in face of the everthreatening autarchy of his external work, nor his indispensable devotion to it, is in any sense self-evident. Hence the reflection which underlies them both must be a free act, i.e., an inward work. We can see the importance of this fourth criterion when we consider that there have always been types of external work, particularly since the rise of modern technical mastery, which apart from a certain measure of indispensable attention claim the worker only in a way which is almost "mechanical," i.e., only as the necessary supplement to the machine performing the actual work, but hardly or not at all in respect of himself or his soul. This has often given rise to justifiable complaint. But should we be content merely to complain about it? It may indeed be true that man is thereby condemned to inward vegetating. But this is true only when he allows himself to be thus condemned, not knowing that there is also an inward activity for which this more or less completely mechanical work might give him more space and freedom than are possible for many others who are more directly and intensively claimed inwardly by their outward work. It was certainly more than the whim of a mystic which at the beginning of the so-called machine age once caused a man like Gerhard Tersteegen to give up his business as a tradesman, and to take up bookbinding, for the very reason that in this occupation he hoped that inwardly he might be independently more rather than less active, as did in fact happen when it helped him to his real vocation as a free-lance pastor, author and poet. It is sureJy not 214

3. The Active Life inevitable that mechanised labour should entail the spiritual impoverishment of the artisan. In innumerable less famous cases it has involved the very opposite. Conversely, it is not at all inevitable that those who are more fully and perhaps totally engaged by their outward work, e.g., the so-called scholars and artists, should be truly alert and active as such. Indeed, they may well let themselves be hindered from the active reflection necessary for life by the fact that their external obligations and affairs are of such a nature as to claim them internally to so great an extent that they become a form of demonic power which inwardly devours them. Whether among these supposedly superior workers there are in fact fewer dull and fundamentally lazy persons, fewer (perhaps extremely busy) idlers, than among those engaged in purely mechanical tasks; whether among these there are fewer who are actually engaged in the active affirmation of existence and who are thus genuinely alive; what is the actual distribution among the various types of work of that which is rightly done and that which is wrongly done-all these are matters which cannot be decided in advance, even under present conditions when so many are condemned to purely mechanical employment.

Conversely, we may make the following observation. For most people external work in the obvious sense occupies as such only two thirds, a half or even perhaps only a third of their time. There are spheres of work like those of the scholar, philosopher, artist or poet in which a man may only devote the odd hour to producing and achieving anything which may be measurable as work and which the farmer, artisan, businessman, technician or official would regard as such. In these and other kinds of work there may be times when, even at the climax of his powers, for weeks or even years on end, he cannot do any real work in the direct sense. This inability is not, of course, an excuse for the man who does not really want to do anything but dawdle away his time irresponsibly. Again, in some cases it may be a morbid symptom. To mention only a single example, this was perhaps true of the poet Heinrich Kleist, who from sheer excess of impelling genius could never do any regular work and as a result finally made shipwreck in a strange fit of madness. In relation to such men we must admit that it hard to draw any dividing line, so that we have to be cautious in our judgments in concrete cases.

It seems that there are actually times and circumstances even in the lives of serious and healthy persons in which they find themselves completely or almost completely driven back upon an apparently sterile inward activity, upon the frame of mind of an unproductive and yet productive brooding and surging and sifting and weighing, upon a kind of pregnancy in which, apart from other psychic reactions, they have probably to take refuge in all kinds of incidental secondary work or business, applying themselves to tasks which ought not to occupy them at all, to things which are fundamentally unnecessary to them and contribute nothing essential to the achievement expected of them, but the pursuit of which, seeing they do not yet consider themselves mature enough for the true work which is before them, gives comfort and service as a temporary substitute. In these circumstances we must have patience with them, and they with themselves. The work required of man has this dimension too, and must sometimes take place over a great stretch of time more or less 215

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dimension of inward disposition, of mere

At this point, without wishing to encourage others in the same direction, we may put in a good word for the much quoted and criticised rural parsons of the 18th and to a large extent the 19th century-even to-day they are not perhaps entirely defunct-who are said to have given a not inconsiderable portion of their time and energy to the tending of their beehives and pear trees and rose gardens and agriculture generally, or to various scientific or historical studies and collections. These were, of course, steps of evasion or escape enabling them to turn their backs on the fields in which they ought to have laboured, but did not yet know, or no longer knew, how to do so properly. Nevertheless, if we know even a little about the ecclesiastical and theological affairs of the period, and can imagine to some extent the spiritual state of parsons at that time, ought we really to be vexed that sometimes the bravest and most worthy found themselves driven to take this evasiveaction? They certainly did not take it only ut aliquid fieri videaturENl50, but seriously ut aliquid fiatENl5\ and only temporarily aliquid minus necessariumENl52, because the unum vere necessariumENl53 which really ought to have occupied them as theologians and parsons, and which they had fundamentally in view, was very largely concealed and impracticable in the spiritual condition of the age. The novels of Jeremias Gotthelf were evasive movements of this kind carried out with supreme reflectivity. And we may be grateful to God that he executed these movements, though we can hardly claim that it was part of his duty as the minister of Liitzelfliih to write novels of this kind. Perhaps the time will come when the reflective ministers of this interim period, who are now viewed with such suspicion, will be regarded and honoured as the representatives of a period of incubation necessary and salutary to the new Protestant Church of the modern era.

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In this respect, we cannot accept as universally valid the criterion that a true external work must alwaysaccompany the internal and its external substitutes. For we have also to remember the sick, who perhaps for vast stretches and even the rest of their life, if not from the very beginning of life to the end, cannot perform any obvious external work with tangible results. It is both crude and unintelligent to say that the sick are "eliminated from the labour process," as though this process in its totality did not also have an inward side which the healthy are only too readily tempted to neglect. Sickness, and in many cases age, do not mean dismissal or banishment from the field of work, but transfer to its other side, where it is no longer possible to work externally apart from dallying over trifles, but instead the inward work of reflection can be pursued the more intensively. Bythe very nature of the case we cannot expect to find demonstrable connexions between the outward work of the young and healthy and the inward work of the sick and aged. Yet these connexions exist. The labour process would not be human if it did not also have this inward, spiritual side, and it is perhaps the specific positive meaning of the existence of the sick and aged to see to it that there is progress on this front as well.Just as mankind in its EN150 EN151 EN152 EN153

that something should seem to be done that something should be done something less necessary one truly necessary thing

216

3. The Active Life creation of measurable and rewarding values, though it may hardly realise the fact, cannot dispense with poets, thinkers and artists and what are in many cases their infrequent and rather odd working days, so the healthy cannot objectively dispense with the sick, nor the young with the old, however small their subjective awareness of the fact. No one should capitulate and regard himself as useless simply because he can hardly go to work, if at all, in the external sense of the term. A hopeless victim of tuberculosis at Davos, who perhaps engages in an honest inward analysis of his destiny with its incipient threat to humanity at large, can still participate in the active affirmation of existence. Indeed, even though this participation may consist in practice only in patient suffering and endurance and the evincing of a little courage and paradoxical cheerfulness, in the midst of his environment he may well do so more intensively than the able-bodied man busy creating values, conducting affairs and forging a career in the heart of Zurich. And there may well be a similar relationship between what a useless old "grannie" can still do and what her offspring are beginning to do or already doing.

The presupposition of all this is naturally as follows. However a man comes to the position, temporarily or permanently, in which he is limited to work which in essence is only reflective and inward, he need not regard this as a useless corner but as a true sphere of work. The validity of his application to it and perseverance in it depends upon his not allowing himself to be either voluntarily or compulsorily "retired" but rather transferred to another form or service. Hence the short, or long, or possibly final transition to and continuance in reflection should not in any sense imply that he may now go idle. Indeed, not only does reflection belong to work and form a part of it, but, far from being an easier and more comfortable part, it is the more diffic~lt, consuming and exhausting. Not for nothing is it dreaded and avoided like the plague by so many men. Not for nothing do we not have the rush one might expect to callings in which it plays an essential part, even in the case of those who might well adopt such callings. Not for nothing are so many afraid of falling sick or growing old. Not for nothing is the relatively ample time left to most men by the claims of their external work normally used otherwise than for the exercise of reflection and mostly for an escape from it in the various forms of "amusement." If reflection is to be carried through, it demands an effort which can be much greater than that of a woodcutter, factory director or university professor. For reflection demands honesty, courage and consistency at a point where we would rather be dishonest, cowardly and inconsistent, namely, in solitude. It demands rest where we would rather rush into cheerful or tragic unrest because in rest we might have to face the truth. It demands a step or steps into freedom which we seek to avoid because we know that they will also entail responsibility. In the inner realm we realise that we should be on the high seas instead of in a sheltered harbour. There, too, something is to be taken and grasped and executed. There, too, work is to be done. But inner work understood in this way is one of the dimensions which must not be lacking in human action. If a man's work is to be well done before God, it must stand by this criterion too, i.e., by the criterion of reflectivity. The life of man is so ordered that it is really made easy for us to live it in such a way that it can 217

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stand by this criterion. The more shame to us, therefore, if we fail to live it thus, either because our supposed work is not reflection or because our supposed reflection is not work! 5. A final necessary definition of the concept of true work is provided by the fact that the command of work, too, has as its aim the freedom of man for existence. As alwayswith the divine command, it claims the whole man, yet not as fate or a human tyrant might do in totalitarian fashion, but after the manner of the free and loving God, who, when He summons man to the work to be performed by him, does not claim him for an active affirmation of existence which has no end or limit, for a kind of perpetual competition after the manner of the American Taylor or the Russian Stachanovite systems, but claims him for Himself that He may make of him a free being. Hence it is not true that to be an obedient life the life of a man must consist only in mere outward work conjoined with mere inward, with no time which is not in some way occupied with work. Such a total life of work is not only not commanded but actually forbidden. For work can have in life only a secondary significance. Its only meaning can be to set man free to participate in the service of the Christian community. What is really at stake in the active life to which God summons man is that God should grant, assign and procure him a free life. This emerges quite clearly in the fact that He first and properly calls him to that service. To the extent that man's life may be lived in God's service it is per sea free life. But this is not self-evident in the summons to work. For in work man is concerned to earn his livelihood. He is directed to specific ends, occupied with specific material and intellectual objects and tasks, committed to a specific objectivity and integrated into a special process within the general process of human labour. His concern is actively to affirm his own existence. He must take himself in hand. He must look to himself and dispose concerning himself. He must think and act as his own lord and master. The very freedom with which he works, when conjoined with concern for his subsistance, with orientation on the relevant aims and materials and tasks, with the required objectivity and the demands of the general process of labour, might well constitute a threat not only to his freedom for God but also to his own freedom as the goal of the command. Whenever man takes himself in hand, he is in danger of taking himself prisoner and allowing himself to be enslaved. Even in the inward work of objectivity he can succumb to his own and indirectly to all kinds of alien compulsion. He is in no sense a reliable guarantor and custodian of his own freedom either as freedom for God or freedom for life. His work, therefore, must be protected against becoming this threat. It must not overwhelm him, neither must he be overwhelmed and enslaved by it. It must not become absolute, wholly engulfing and mastering him. The freedom which is its aim in terms of the divine command must have and assert in his life a specific, concrete and solid place. He may and should rest from all his work; otherwise he cannot do it aright. We call this fifth criterion of right work the criterion of its limitation. 218

3. The Active Life It has, of course, its theological basis in the fact that the active affirmation of man's existence can take place only in execution of the divine command. Hence it can take place aright only as it is surrounded, conditioned, determined and defined, as man's own act, by the Word and work of God's grace. By this it is necessarily characterised and sharply distinguished as a finite work instead of an infinite. This characterisation takes place as the divine command has the form of the Sabbath commandment, as we saw at the outset of this ethical discussion. It is the concrete reminder of the day of the Lord which preceded all man's working days as the day of completed creation and of the Lord's resurrection, and which will follow them all as the day of judgment and of death. This day is the day of God's freedom and rest and therefore of man's freedom and rest. To remember it concretely is the specific requirement of the Sabbath commandment. The command of work can be rightly heard and understood only in this light. Rightly heard and understood it demands that the active affirmation of the existence required of man as his outward and inward work should not take place otherwise than in concrete respect for the affirmation of his existence which is not his own affair but God's alone. God certainly demands that man should work. He also demands, however, that he should rest, that there should be in his life a place which is free for God and therefore for himself, in order that he may thus be protected against himself and the overwhelming power which his work, and the prospect of its reward, its aims and its objectivity, might gain over him. We are not speaking of the positive significance of the Sabbath command, though this cannot be exaggerated. We are speaking only of what it necessarily means for work as such in the light of the command. If it is done aright and in obedience, it allows itself to be characterised as a restricted activity. Ifman's work is to be done aright, relaxation is required. This is true both of outward work and inward. Work under tension is diseased and evil work which resists God and destroys man. It is done under tension, however, when man does not rise above it but is possessed, controlled and impelled by it. This possession, control and impulsion obtain when he posits himself absolutely as the subject of the active affirmation of his existence, refusing to notice that he can be this only secondarily and relativeJy, and that the responsibility with which he should do his work can be only that of one carrying out a superior order. Properly and finally, then, it is not his own responsibility but that of the One who orders him to work. He can and should affirm his existence actively, but only on the presupposition and in relation to the fact that it is already affirmed by his Creator who is his primary and true Lord. It is not he himself who has to achieve this true and basic affirmation of his existence. By his outward and inward work he can and should confirm it in all seriousness and with all his might, but he may do so bravely and cheerfully because it is God's work which he is summond to confirm, and he is thus relieved entirely from the task of achieving or even supplementing and improving this basic affirmation by his own work. It is and will be executed properly as the work of God. Man has

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neither to repeat, emulate, nor augment this work of God. He has simply to attest it. He has simply to affirm his existence in creaturely and not divine activity. He has simply to praise God with his activity. Hence he need not work as if it were demanded of him that he should do so with the omnipotence and wisdom of God, as though he were the ruler of the world and his own helper and saviour. That which he has been commissioned to do as a witness of the divine work is hard and strenuous enough. But he has not been commissioned to exercise the initiating and consummating function of God. He can and should leave this wholly to God. The demanded rest from all his labour is that he should do his work with diligence but also with the recollection that God is Lord, Master, Provider, Warrior, Victor, Author and Finisher, and therefore with the relief and relaxation which spring from this recognition. To work tensely is to do so in self-exaltation and forgetfulness of God. All the faithfulness, zeal, conscientiousness and good intentions which a man may bring to this work do not alter the fact that in it he sins, and sins just as grievously as if he were either not working at all or working carelessly. In it the fellow-humanity of right work is also forgotten and lost. The understanding of genuine and justifiable claims is also confused and man falls victim to empty and inordinate desires. He usually omits to investigate the difference between meaningful and meaningless aims. And he certainly cannot work objectively. Tension makes work a drudgery, a mad race, an affliction, not only for the worker himself but also for those around. He may and should work, but if he does so in a feverish state of tension everything goes wrong, he throws everything into confusion and he thus upsets himself and everyone else. This should not be. We often think there is no other way. We often find ourselves dragged along this way. But if so, we should be ashamed of ourselves. We are always mistaken if we think there is no option but to work tensely. We should let ourselves be released from this compulsion. Such release ought to be regarded as a divinely ordained hygiene even in relation to ourselves, although naturally and more particularly in relation to the demands we make on others. This is primarily true in the sphere of outward work, but also in that of inward as well. For there is a kind of reflection, of self-preoccupation, of spiritual preparation, mobilisation and planning for all sorts of decisions, acte and works, which has long since ceased to be orderly inward work. As a fruitless and restless revolving around a partly or wholly imaginary impulse, it has become a spiritual tension which simply demands cessation and from which we can and should be released by the simple reminder that God is in charge. Rest in work does not mean taking things easily, or being indifferent and careless. It simply implies relaxation in the execution of this work by an applied knowledge of God and oneself, by a recognition of the measures, proportions and distances in which alone it can be done meaningfully and effectively. Rest in work means that even as he performs it man remains free in relation to it, and' above all in relation to' himself. 220

3. The Active Life Outward and inward work will be done with more rather than less seriousness once a man realises that what he desires and does and achieves thereby, when measured by the work of God which it may attest, cannot be anything but play, i.e., a childlike imitation and reflection of the fatherly action of God which as such is true and proper action. When children play properly, of course, they do so with supreme seriousness and devotion. Even in play, if a man does not really play properly he is a spoil-sport. We are summoned to play properly. But we must not imagine that what we desire and are able to do is more than play. Human work would certainly not be worse done, but both individually and as a whole it would be done much better, if it were not done with the frightful seriousness which is so often bestowed upon it just because fundamentally we do not think that we have to take God seriously, and therefore we must take ourselves the more terribly seriously, this usually being the surest way to invoke the spirit of idleness and sloth by way of compensation. We may confidently affirm that not by a long chalk can work be done with genuine earnestness in these circumstances-and this for the simple reason that we will not admit that in it, even at best, we cannot be more than children engaged in serious and true play. No type of work is exempt from this rule. It may be seen clearly in the work of the artist, since there it belongs to the very heart of the matter. Yet we might just as well be prepared frankly to admit its validity in scientific work as well. When A. v. Harnack once permitted himself the remark that work is what really counts in theology, i.e., to carry a point-and the statement is worth considering in itself-the following entry was made by F. Overbeck (cf. Christentum und Kultur, 1919, 204) under the heading "A" on one of the slips on which he used to jot down his secret comments on the conduct and doings of his contemporaries: ''Yet it would not be a bad thing to learn moderation by recognising that among the Danaic gifts with which the scholar enters the world, and without which he could not exist in it, assiduity is neither the most innocuous nor the least question able. This inflexibility of diligence scares away all the other gods from the atmosphere of scholarship, and in order to secure genuine work we might seriously consider erecting in a side-chapel a small altar to idleness. Even when time and creation co-operate to their mutual satisfaction, meditation and production can never be completely equated. Harnack, the apostle of work in our age, does not seem to understand this. What finally counts is not work but quality. If work is exalted, we need not be surprised at the futility of the work done in modern theology and philology. The only result is to maintain the indifference to the objects and ends of work so greatly coveted in present circumstances." There is perhaps an element of malice in these words, and as a criticism of Harnack they hardly do him justice. Yet they are worth pondering, and their profoundly Christian significance should not be missed in spite of the suspicious references to pagan gods and altars. The clear biblical basis for our consideration of the rest demanded of man as relaxation in his work is naturally to be found in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 625-34), namely, in the saying that the disciples are not to be anxious about life, or food or drink, or clothing, or the morrow. MEpLfLvav ENl54 is the distress or burden or tension which man accepts as inevitable but which he really inflicts upon himself quite arbitrarily by believing that he himself has to speak the essential and decisive word in this matter by his own achievements in affirmation of his existence, that the responsibility is his and that he is the father who has to decree and regulate the future envisaged in his work, whereas the real Father, by feeding the fowls of the air and clothing the lilies of the field which cannot work, shows how graciously and mightily He cares for him, so that even as one who can work he should still exist simply as a child of his Father. This is the anxiety which must cease. And when the kingdom of God is sought first, it does cease. Work done in anxiety cannot be done aright as such.

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If man's work is to be done aright, there is also need of distraction or diversion, if we may venture two rather dangerous terms. At this point there is only a hair's breadth between truth and error. It would be wrong to say that we may and should distract ourselves, finding diversion in different directions and spheres of our existence under different laws. In all that we are and do, we can be and will only the one thing, namely, to be obedient human creatures. As such, we cannot distract ourselves. The limitation of work is not the limitation of obedience. Yet to obedience there also belongs rest in and alongside our work. And in relation to our work rest means distraction, which in the true sense is expansion into other directions and spheres different from those of our work. It may be expansion into the direction and sphere of different work from that for which we are specifically coinmissioned and which we have specifically accepted and execute. Rest as the limitation of work can hardly imply at once or very often sheer inactivity, although at this limit there may sometimes be the exceptional case when this is possible and welcome and therefore right. Normally and decisively, however, rest consists in the non-doing of that which forms the object of the work otherwise demanded. It is our temporary release and liberation for some other activity. This other activity may also be work. In most cases it will be. But it will be work undertaken voluntarily and therefore with particular joy. It will be work which demands very different interests and exertions. To this extent it will be re-creative, refreshing and beneficial, like a secondary play supporting the main one enacted on the decisive stage. Obviously, by way of games of sport, this may easily pass over into play in the stricter sense. At this point there is, of course, the danger of a movement of evasion in which we try to shirk the role that we really ought to play and want to work only in distraction, only in a subordinate role, and therefore at bottom not at all. Yet this danger does not alter in the slightest the fact that it is absolutely indispensable for every man to pursue, in addition to his work, not too many but at least one or two worth-while allotriaEN155, to have one or two side-lines, to develop one or two hobbies in which he can best find refreshment if in them, too, he seeks a modest mastery, or is at least greatly interested. The tension to which we have referred will be most surely safeguarded against relapsing into empty indifference if the rest demanded does not remain a vacuum but is given a positive content, if the free space which it should give us, while it is left free, is also in its own way filled, if something is done in it, and indeed something which stands in meaningful and fruitful relation to man's existence and service, and therefore to his work. Some observations may be interpolated at this point concerning what we have said about the limitation of work. The command that man should rest in and from his work is like every other command. Once we realise that it is a command, and indeed a divine command, we must assume that it is valid for all men in all circumstances,

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3. The Active Life impunity. We cannot keep this too firmly before our eyes, and in our own day there is good cause to publish it particularly loudly and clearly. For there are few things which the modern man who bears the mark of modern European and American culture and civilisation, and whom Soviet man threatens to resemble only too closely under another sign, needs to impress upon his mind more fully than that in order to remain alive before God and for himself he must find a place for rest, no matter what the cost. The strange thing is that in spite of all the astonishing possibilities of intensification, multiplication and acceleration which he has been able to create for himself in the constantly mounting development of his technical mastery of work, he has not so far caused or allowed himself to be induced to relax, to find relief and liberation, to be released from tension, to find intelligent diversion and therefore to find the way to true work. On the contrary, all these new possibilities have thus far had only the result of setting an increasing pace by the accelerating tempo of his machines and gadgets, so that he is driven and chased and harried as it were by them. He has let himself be set by them in a mounting fever for work, and while this fever may later prove to be a channel to new and better health, there is also the possibility-and there are more pointers in this direction-that the patient will one day die of it. There is also the possibility that it is a symptom of the approach ing and gigantic ruin of at least a stage of civilisation. There is also the possibility that it cannot continue very much longer. We can scarcely maintain that what modern man has so far achieved in this increasing fever is either gratifYing or hopeful. Two examples may be cited in this connexion, and it need hardly be said whether they are marginal cases or belong to the very heart of modera industrial life. The first relates to the sphere of diplomacy. When we turn to the work of international diplomacy in its concern for the relations between peoples and states, for the maintenance of peace and the avoiding of war, we are confronted by the successive epochs, first of Metternich and Castlereagh, then of Bismark and Gladstone, then of Bernard von Bulow and Delcasse, then of Briand and Stresemann, then of Neville Chamberlain, Daladier and Ribbentrop, and finally of the men whose names are in the newspapers to-day and who are occupied by reason of their calling with the question of peace and war and therefore with the common earthly future of all of us. To consider the matter for once simply from the standpoint of the work achieved at each stage, what has taken place in this sphere with the passage of the years? Undoubtedly there has been an increasingly noticeable transition from procedures which in their gravity, ceremoniousness and solemn indolence would certainly bear comparison with the playing of a mysterious minuet, to a supreme fixity, dexterity and mobility which finally claim and exploit the time, energy and ability of all concerned, to a haste complexity and promptness of all the principal and subsidiary actions, with a parallel development in the functions of the inextricably involved machinery of the press, its information, communication of news, influence, subjection to influence, open and concealed propaganda and general participation. There can be no doubt that the work accomplished in this whole field has increased tenfold in quantity during the last 150 years. There can also be no doubt, however, that this has taken place under the pressure of the ten times great er technical possibilities which supposedly might have simplified things and which could in fact do so. Thus the Congress of Vienna seems veritable child's play compared with what has been more recently achieved at Lake Success. Yet at the same time what an atrophy of good taste and good manners, of human propriety, of trained prudence and foresight, of careful scrutiny and consideration, of relative seriousness and bona jidesEN156 in the settlement of agreements and treaties, of speed and stability in the attainment of results which at least EN156

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~ 55. Freedom for Life outlive the occasion for which they are designed! What a superfluity of consciously ambiguous phrases, of papers whose contents it is not intended to honour even when they are signed, of intrigues which are not even subtle but clumsy, of acts of rudeness which are not even unintentional serious moments,

but deliberate, of attempts to formalise, sabotage and delay at the most and then of rashly conceived, impracticable and merely ostensible

decisions and resolutions! Work as such has taken on colossal dimensions, rest has been banished, and what have we gained? Our gain is that the intelligent person no longer takes any notice when diplomats-if there are still any real diplomats-foregather, since he knows in advance that nothing of any true importance is likely to emerge, that certainly nothing beneficial will do so, and that in these professional guardians of the nations we find ourselves, if not in evil, at least in most incompetent hands, not because they work too little or

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with too little industry, but because they work too much and in a way which is far too complicated and excited, because they are so restless in their work, because they are the prisoners of their own profession and therefore of their constantly improving possibilities of work. In such unrest not even the angels could do proper work, far less men. The second example is provided by the Protestant Churches of the present age. In their own way they, too, have taken part in the conscious development. But a laudatio temporis actiEN157 would be even less fitting here than elsewhere. It was right enough that the Protestant Churches should let themselves be roused from the Sleeping Beauty slumbers of a century old routine in which they had been drowsing far too long, to seek new ways and better methods in the fashioning of their congregational life as well as in their relations to the world around. The technical possibilities of our age offered them the necessary stimulus and means and eagerly, if a little tardily, they have learned to make use of them. To-day there is incomparably more work done in these Churches, and more intensive and extensive work with much greater zeal and at a far quicker tempo, than 100 or 150 years ago. What antheaps the Churches have become! How they have improved their philanthropic activities! How very different is their attitude from that of earlier times to the world of growing youth and men! How they have learned not only to advertise through the press, not only to exercise influence through it, but actually to impress it into the service of proclamation! How many things are now done to establish new and direct sympathy between tile Church and the intellectuals and workers estranged from it! How many possibilities of fellowship, of Christian training, of biblical and philosophical instruction, of conversations of all kinds, are now necessary or on the point of development in Church circles! How many voluntary groups of clergy and laity we now see, whether with or without the status of a "movement," getting down to work in all directions! How much activity we see seriously initiated in some quarters even by ecclesiastical leaders and authorities, to say nothing of the centres of ecumenical activity which have sprung up so remarkably, or of the incentives to work which, flow back from them into the individual Churches! Who would wish to say a single word against this whole advance? The Protestant Churches had and have a great deal of work to make up. On the other hand, the serious question must be posed whether here, too, the tempo of work has not become almost too great, threatening to dominate Christians instead of being dominated by their cause. The question must also be asked whether the quality of the work performed, has really been able to keep pace with the present quantity and intensity, and what has become of the rest which is surely quite indispensable to the work of the Church, which is also its service if done aright. We certainly cannot print and distribute too much paper for the Christian cause. But the question what is written on this paper, and whether or how far it is genuinely Christian, demands careful scrutiny, and for this rest is essential, so that it might be better to print and distribute less. Again, we cannot pay too much attention

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3. The Active Life to young people or men. But what are we to offer them? On the basis of what dogmatics and ethics are we to approach them, and with a view to what politics and aesthetics? To answer these questions we need rest, and in this field, too, less might well prove to be more. For if we give only superficial answers which fundamentally are no answers at all, the most industrious activity simply leads into the void and we cannot reach our objectives. The much cited and exercised claim of the Church to speak on public questions is also intrinsically good. But it is again worth considering what has really to be put before the public. Surely we cannot be content either with conventional slogans on the one side or on the other with new demands and programmes which have not been scrutinised to see if they are more secular than Christian or more Roman Catholic than Protestant. For this kind of examination, rest is necessary. Otherwise the Church will either make a fool of itself or do far worse and gain Pyrrhic victories, in which case it might do better to keep silence than to make public pronouncements. Conferences, meetings, retreats, weeks of work and even "schools" are also good in themselves, but only when those who assemble both come from something definite and go towards something definite. But for this rest is needed; otherwise they will not achieve the desired result and the coming together will simply be a useless flight from the void into the void. "Conversations" are also good if they spring from rest. But many conversations-even student conversations-are superflous and futile because they pretend to be work and yet this can only be pretence because unrest lies behind them. All in all, is there not perhaps in our Churches to-day too much self-encircling movement of all kinds, from which we would do far better to rest for a period for the sake of the rest from which alone genuine movemen t can come, that we might then resume our activitywith new meaning and seriousness? If we were to do this, we might then work much more earnestly and productively, and in a manner far more impressively Christian both within and without. There might then be far fewer psychopaths and excited bundles of nerves among zealous Christians, and particularly among theologians. Many unnecessary misunderstandings, duplications and collisions might then be avoided. The whole advance of the Church in our day might then become much more imposing and promising than it now seems. God forbid that we should one day be confronted by the strange spectacle of diplomats suddenly learning reason, but the Church being betrayed by its laudable impulse to work, and its excellent facilities, into industrious irrationality! These are only two examples-a secular and a Christian being intentionally selected-to show how much cause there is for modern man to accept the command to rest both for God's sake and for his own. Another observation is now demanded however, from a very different angle. Since this command is the command of God, and since it is perhaps the most important of all the criteria of right work, decisive for the observance of all the rest, we must remember that in general it can be fully and directly kept only on an individual basis. It is always rather hard and slightly absurd for one man to tell another that he should rest, relax and seek distraction. Of course, there are cases when this may be absolutely right, and therefore one man should say this to another in spite of all the hardness and absurdity. But in so doing he must be clear that he is making upon the other a demand which it may be necessary for him to receive but which is still qnite unparalleled. Rightly understood, to rest, relax and seek diversion is to move out of oneself to God, to see that one's active affirmation of existence is only relative, to understand that it is surrounded and upheld by the absolute active affirmation of existence whose Subject is God and not oneself. In the last resort, however, to rest in God is something to which each of us can only snmmon himself on the basis of and in answer to the fact that he is summoned to do so by God, who has magnified the goodness, wisdom and omnipotence of His divine action and therefore the playful seriousness of every human action in~luding us own. Hence, however well informed we may be about the outward and inward situation of another, however rightly we may perceive that he 225

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needs to obey this command, we have to reckon with the fact that there might be obstacles to this obedience which are not removed by simply presenting it to him either in the form of exhortation or of consolation. He is perhaps so tense, so identified with the inward and outward disquiet of work, that at first he cannot even grasp the concept of rest as demanded by human lips, the plea that he should relax and seek diversion coming to him only as an empty and superficial word with no bearing on his real existence. Particularly it might be the case that for external reasons, through the social situation in which he has to work, and probably in relation to the great social injustice of the labour process, the competition And class struggle of which he is the victim, he does not have the opportunity; to procure the necessary rest even if he understands what it is, but can think of relaxation only as an exhausted state of inaction, and of diversion only as doing nothing whatever or engaging in futilities. The exhortation to rest might thus seem to be simply an exhortation of middle class ethics which does not apply to him and which he need not therefore observe. Since we have to reckon with such obstacles in numerous and perhaps even the majority of cases, we must accept the fact that in relation to others the exhortation to rest can usually have the form only of indirect and not of direct communication. It must be presupposed, of course, that the divine command is valid for all in this direction too, so that its observance is not just beneficial but of vital necessity. It must also be presupposed, however, that in the last resort only God can procure observance, and that there are serious obstacles to this for which all-of us bear heavy responsibility. And finally it must be presupposed that God is merciful to the man who is hampered in this way, that He seeks him too, that He waits for him, and therefore that in Him rest is available for him. These three presuppositions underlie the merciful or indirect communication of the admonition. In what can this consist on the basis of these presuppositions? For one thing, it will certainly consist in the fact that the man who knows the command will not preach to those who can make nothing of it, bnt give then such active encouragement and useful opportunity as lie within his power. This shows us again, especially in relation to those who by their social position are plunged into what seems to be eternal unrest, why Christianity must stand resolutely by the side of those who rebus sic stantibusEN158 are socially weaker and less favoured in the struggle for a free Sunday, a free week-end, a shorter working week and proper holidays. Of course, these are only opportunities for the required rest. Obedience to the command cannot be guaranteed by offering opportunities for it. What we have here, then, is only an indirect communication of the command. But this must not be omitted, for it is a necessary part of the Christian ministry of witness. Opportunities for rest are the very thing which so many lack. To procure them on a larger or smaller scale lies well within the possibilities of the one in relation to the other. What indirect communication can there be, however, when the obstacles are more of a spiritual kind, consisting rather in the fact that the other stands in his own light with his outward and inward work, that he cannot even grasp the concept of the demanded and necessary rest, and that he cannot therefore use what he is offered in this respect? In this case, nothing is of any value except practical example, and therefore a demonstration of obedience to the command, of rest from work, in our own being, activity, and inactivity. If he does not have any grasp of the matter, it is because he cannot see it. Hence we must enable him to see it. Yet we must not forget that God alone can give him both rest and the earnest desire for it. We cannot convert others in this matter either by instruction or even by example. We can only open up an opportunity to them even by our example. Where, instruction fails, however, we are in fact summoned to fill the gap by example as the second form of indirect communication. One quiet man can accomplish wonders in a whole room or hall full of excited people. In the company of the EN158

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3." The Active Life restless, or even of only one restless fellow-man, it will be seen and tested whether we ourselves not only have a true view and concept of rest but whether we actually possess something of rest itself, i.e., whether and how far we ourselves are obedient to the divine command. There is no avoiding the fact that if we exhort others to be quiet in their work, as we ought to do, then we must first have exhorted ourselves, so that in our own existence we can at least give some indication that there is such a rest among men and that it may really be expected. Perhaps one of the most important contributions which Christianity has to make towards the conquest or at least the mitigation of the unrest of work which threatens the world and the Church to-day is to produce here and there a few quiet people who by their existence can give others the chance also to find rest, thus testifying that even and perhaps especially to-day the command is both plain and valid.

We now draw to a conclusion. What we have said about the positive content of man's imperative rest from his work is too little and trivial if our reference is simply to the necessary diversion or distraction. Even when best understood and practised, distraction cannot finally be more than the upward beat in a very different movement, which must now take this opposite course, and in so doing show that rest is the necessary and genuine opposite and the concrete limitation of work. In distraction or diversion as this expansion into various directions and spheres freely selected in relation to the work which is strictly required, man simply exercises himself, as it were, in the freedom which is the goal of the command to work. But he genuinely uses, practises and enjoys this freedom in a movement of which we have still to speak. For this reason, we must now turn to what really constitutes the positive content of the rest which transcends work, i.e., to the far side of that which bounds and limits it. We have already mentioned the concept of contemplation, i.e., in contrast to the reflectivity which concerned us in our description of the inward side of work. We must now take up this concept again. Even though we can only touch on it, we must do so with some care. For a land of contemplation or consideration arises at this point, not as the essential or independent content of the movement in which man can be free on the far side of his work, but certainly as its terminus a quoEN150, as the background against which it stands in relief, as its basic accompaniment. Naturally, however, we must handle the concept very cautiously, since it might easily spoil for us the Christian view of this rest and freedom. We are warned already in this respect by the fact that contemplation (contemplatio) is one of the terms used in mediaeval and especially mystical theology. Under the name of the vita contemplativaEN160, in distinction from the vita activaEN161, it usually expressed the sum of the "spiritual" as opposed to the civil and secular life and activity of the vertically and divinely orientated "religious," ascribing to them the scholarship and cultic worship which were the particular concern of the monasteries. But contemplatioEN162 also has the more specific connotation of the first step on the mystic way, of the first wondering direction of attention to EN159 EN160 EN161 EN162

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~ 55. Freedom for Life the God perceived in Scripture and tradition, which was then followed by reflection or meditation on this subject as the second step, absorption into it as the third, and union with it as the fourth. This earlier history of the concept necessarily enjoins caution, since in the Old and New Testaments it does not occur in either this more general or more specific sense, since there is no precedent or parallel in them for a "contemplating" of God, and since contemplatio of this kind obviously forms part of the mystical technique of all peoples, ages and religions, and is not specifically Christian. This does not mean that the concept is absolutely and in every sende useless in the context of Christian thinking. It is undoubtedly a warning, however, that we must not adopt it in the mystical sense, nor make of it a leading idea or primary theme, if we are to give a Christian description of man's rest from his work.

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Is there something for man to contemplate when he rests on the far side of his work? Indeed there is. We part company with mystical usage, however, by insisting that this something is not God. To be at rest, when it takes place, is naturally to be at rest before and in God. But the matter is not so simple that man has only to halt in his work, or in some sense to pass through the veil on the frontier of his work, to stumble at once and per seEN163 upon God. If he does in fact come to have dealings with God at this point, it is certainly not as an object of contemplation. That upon which he stumbles and which he begins to contemplate in this way is simply himself. He finds himself alone with himself. To come to rest, which is, of course, only the terminus a quoEN164, the background or accompaniment of what is truly at issue, is to move out from and to survey oneself. This man cannot do in his outward and inward work, in his entire active affirmation of life. Forcefully preoccupied with himself, he cannot see himself and thus remains unknown to himself. He is simultaneously both too near and too far away from himself. If there is a limit to his work and he passes it, then on the one hand this gives him the detachment from it, and on the other he finds the freedom, which are both necessary if he is to see himself as he is: to see himself as this externally and internally occupied and active man whose past as it runs into the present is his particular past (remembered or otherwise), and whose future as it begins in the present is this unknown future; to see himself in his particular psycho-physical constitution and condition, in his definite relations with his fellows, in his basic and indestructible relationship to God (whatever this may be), in the totality of his existence. This is what primarily and momentarily at least he comes to contemplate in this detachment. Once his work is really left behind, and everything is calm around and within, it happens for the first time that he, the subject, becomes for himself an object At this point the ancient "Know thyself' perhaps has place and meaning. If we conceive of this event and activity with any fulness, self-knowledge necessarily means that I perceive, confess and recognise, without reservation, reduction or addition, without embellishment or concealment, because quite objectively, that I am here and that this is what I am. And EN 163 EN164

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3. The Active Life if this really takes place on the far side of all work, in true quiet and as a moment of pure contemplation, it does so without explanation, without the requirement or urge to make something of myself, and therefore without the compulsion, desire of ability at once to address, instruct, praise or censure myself, to shake myself, to set myself in motion in one direction or another. In contemplation I face myself exactly as I am, and am content that I must have and know myself exactly as I am. Without contemplation in what is obviously seen to be this secular and not at all mystical sense, there is no rest. If we are not prepared to stand at a distance that we may see the beings we are in full particularity and every possible dimension, and if we are not prepared to do this quite calmly, dispassionately, impartially, unassumingly, without premeditation, with neither optimism nor pessimism, neither in heavenly rapture nor mortal sorrow, but interested only in the fact that this is what we are, then in spite of every evidence of the need or desire to relax and seek diversion we do not really want rest, but only work, and therefore unrest. On the other hand, if we really step through the veil and leave work behind, we inevitably encounter ourselves and must see and accept ourselves. Yet we must not insist upon this point at too great length or with too great zeal. In relation to what constitutes the required rest, such contemplation can only be dependent and auxiliary. It can only be a matter of transition. This transition is necessary. For man must face and see himself in this way if he is to partake of real rest. Yet it would be terrible if this were the essential thing, if self-knowledge in the sense described were the final thing to be said about real rest. We should note carefully that the moment of wondering concentration in the encounter with the self and its recognition-here as in the case of mystical contemplation there is real concentration-is a very doubtful moment. What will be its result? Is it to dissolve and revert to the activity, the work, the daily round, in which I can again be with myself and again forget myself? Shall I be more willing, courageous and proficient now that I have come to know myself? Can self-acquaintance really be a consolation and admonition? If not, for what purpose have I made it? Or should I imagine that I have encountered God and made acquaintance with Him in making or renewing acquaintance with myself? Should I, then, cling to this recollection of myself and continually seek to remind myself of it, as if I were therein reminded of the absolute, final and supreme essence of being? Is it my Lord whom I have met and whom I contemplate there-I myself in my existence? If so, I am trusting in a curious God and Absolute and Lord. Or, without any such interpretation, should I try to be as honest as possible with myself, quietly and tenaciously clinging to myself as I have now learned to know myself, confessing with a supreme effort of defiance that, no matter what may be the implications, I am who I am and expect myself and others and even the good Lord Himself to take me for what I have discovered and confirmed myself to be? But this is obviously to overlook the fact that the better one knows oneself the more self-reckoning entails a disquiet 229

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compared with which all the outward or inward restlessness of work is profound rest, which banishes every form of self-satisfaction, and which cannot be changed by any honesty, or defiance, or insistence that "I am made this way." For it is the very fact that "I am made this way" which is so supremely and profoundly distressing. Should I then try to shake myself, to take myself in hand, to change myself? "Change your life .... " But is the contemplation genuinely radical, have I truly encountered myself, am I really accepting myself, if I think I can understand myself as a being which can change itself and therefore arbitrarily evade that disquiet? And even if I can deceive myself in this regard and undertake such self-alteration, do I not find myself again in the sphere of work, albeit inward work, to which a limit must be set and in relation to which what is demanded is not more work but rest? Do I not make of myself a transgressor of the command which, having required of me outward and inward work, no less decisively directs me to rest in order that on the basis of rest I may do new and better work both outwardly and inwardly? What am I about if in order to evade that great disquiet-as if I could!-I plunge myself out of rest into a new restlessness of work which, for all the energy expended, is of very little account in relation to what is at issue. Contemplation in itself and as such, therefore, can be only a cul-de-sac. Yet contemplation in the sense described can also be a transition, i.e., the reference to a place from which something can come to pass which has nothing more to do with such contemplation, at which nothing more is to be seen or sought or recognised, but at which something is to be heard, namely, the Word of God, and man has to answer, namely, by calling upon His name. It is in this hearing and answering that the real rest of man from his labour consists. There must be contemplation because, in order to attain to rest, man must be in the attitude of rest. And he achieves this attitude only when he takes a step away from himself and obtains a detached survey of himself, not proceeding at once to forget himself in a new active affirmation of life, but remaining fixed as it were, and attaining knowledge of himself in complete detachment. How could he be capable of rest if he did not even desire it but constantly rejected it? Yet he does not obtain it for himself by wanting it, and therefore by not refusing to step through the veil and to accept and know himself in place of the different kinds of outward and inward work. He cannot obtain it for himself at all. He can only receive it at the place to which he must indeed resort. His rest is in God. God Himself is his rest. Only God can give him rest. But God-this is the error of so much mysticism-is not a further object of contemplation. God withdraws from every kind of contemplation. For God acts. He acts through His Word. He speaks and wills to be heard. And as He speaks and is heard by man. He gives him the rest which he can neither obtain by contemplation nor otherwise, but in relation to which he for his part in his human sphere-this is the incidental significance of contemplation-can be in an attitude of rest. Man is not merely able to be with himself as in work. He can also step out of himself and face himself to see who

3. The Active Life and what he is. He must do this ifhe is to hear God. For God speaks to him as he is in his totality Therefore he cannot be concealed from himself as that which he is. Nevertheless, if he may now hear Him, it is not in virtue of his work, nor because he has so nicely positioned himself at the place where he may do so, but only because God in His inconceivable mercy does actually speak to him. As God does this, he receives true rest. Even in the midst of time, he receives eternal rest, moving to the far side of his work from which he can return to it comforted and admonished, not losing it again but accompanied and supported by it. The active affirmation of human existence of which God is the Subject, is manifested when He speaks to man and man may hear Him exactly as he is, his ears open because he knows who he himself is. Hence God gives man rest as He speaks to him. The achievement of true rest it really a matter of pure receiving. We do not say of passive receiving. The eternal rest which springs from the speaking of God and the hearing of His Word is life and not death, waking and not sleeping. For if we may hear the Word of God as those we are, how can we do so without having to answer? And if we know who we are, how can we answer from the infinite disquiet which we create for ourselves unless we call on His name, on His merciful and saving name? What else can we say to what God gives us but stammering praise of this gift and Giver? What else can our praise of this gift and Giver be-always assuming that we know who and what we are-but a single petition and supplication, a spreading out of empty hands to the One who, so long as we are on our way, must always fill them afresh, that we may be able to live in the midst of work with the freedom at which we can aim in our work only as we do it aright. Receiving in this case is active receiving, since the man who receives eternal rest can never cease to make petition and supplication. Yet this does not mean a relapse into work or new restlessness. For this active receiving is as such man's participation in the rest, the real resting from his work, which is available for the people of God.

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[565J FREEDOM IN LIMITATION God the Creator wills and claims the man who belongs to Him, is united to his fellow-man and under obligation to affirm his own life and that of others, with the special intention indicated by the limit of time, vocation and honour which He has already set him as his Creator and Lord.

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THE UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY

The fundamental and indestructible relation of man to God was the first aspect under which we attempted to understand the command of God the Creator (~ 53), his fellow-humanity was the second (~ 54), and his participation in the loan of life the third (~ 55). In conclusion, we shall now try to understand the command from the standpoint that God has set a limit for man as His creature. This limit is both individual as a specific form for each man, and universal as the one great limit of His will as Creator and Lord which He has set for all. Yetin the very limitation in which every man is what he is according to the divine will and decree, there is also declared the special determination which he is given by God, the special intention of God as this is made known in the divine command and to be fulfilled in the free act of his obedience. Even in this limitation, therefore, man is summoned to the freedom of obedience to God's command. Our theme is thus the command of God in its specific relationship to the man for whom the commanding God has already set a limit. We shall begin with a short elucidation of this relationship, and we shall then go on to consider the sanctification and obedience of man within it in its first and most important aspect, namely, as the commanded apprehension of our existence as a unique opporturiity. What are we to say about the relationship as such? It rests materially on the fact that the command of God which summons man to obedience is an act and revelation of His inscrutably free grace and power, but also an act and revelation of His wisdom and righteousness, and therefore not an arbitrary act, nor a mere accident in the life of the man concerned, but a well-aimed arrow which hits its target. Between the God who issues the command and the man who hears it there exists a specific correlation in which God makes it recognisable as His command and it is recognisable to man as such. In none of the contexts which have thus far occupied us has it appeared as an expression of the mere will of a sovereign which must be accepted and respected as such by the being which is subject to him. It has alwaysemerged as an expression of the

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will of the One who as Creator, Preserver, Companion and Ruler of this being has assumed and bears responsibility for its nature and existence. He commands this being as He who has provided for it from the very outset and who deals with it accordingly. This being can thus count upon it that the expression of the will of this Sovereign is in keeping with its own nature. When God speaks to man in His command, He does not speak to one who is completely strange to Him. Even the transgression of man cannot alter the fact that God is his Creator and has always been his Preserver, Companion and Ruler. Nor can man heir the command of God as though it were a competely alien demand. For his transgression cannot alter the fact that he owes what he is to the creation, and what he has become to the providence, of the very God with whose command he is now confronted. The relationship in which the command of God is spoken and heard is that of a reciprocal knowledge. On God's side it is the continuation of His unbroken knowledge of His creature, and on man's the new recognition and acceptance of his knowledge of the Creator interrupted by his transgression. This mutual knowledge is the light which shines over the relationship. And on both sides knowledge means concretely knowledge of that which the man who is addressed by God, and who hears Him in His command, already is on the basis of the will, creation and control of the same God, and therefore knowledge that the claim which God makes with His command is a lawful claim. The man with whom God has to do is not merely inferior to God in power and holiness, so that he must accommodate himself as the weaker partner or out of moral respect. He is rather the possession of God. Indeed, he is his creation and handiwork. Hence it is by no means the case that God with His demand for obedience overtakes and tramples and crowds man to the detriment of his human nature and being, so that the man upon whom this claim is to be made is rather to be pitied. Nor is it the case on the other hand that in His claim on man God finds Himself in some sense determined and limited by man's nature and being and has to adjust Himself to man, so that man can raise a kind of counter-claim that his own nature and being should be consulted. On the contrary, in his very nature and being man already belongs to the God who addresses him in His command and whom he may hear in His command. Indeed, he is predisposed and orientated by God as his Creator and Lord to accept His command and to become obedient to it. In so doing, he simply does what is right for him. Hence, to put it in ontological terms-for the reciprocal knowledge is real knowledge-the relationship between the God who commands and the man who is summoned by Him to obedience is one of mutual co-ordination. We cannot know about it, of course, a prioriEN1 or in principle. It is not a general metaphysical truth. But when God speaks and man hears, there is revealed to man, in and with the command of God which claims him, this objective co-ordination between God and himself. Precisely in that which God wills of him and for which He has ENl

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determined him, man finds himself exposed, understood and addressed in his innermost nature and being, and therefore not as an empty page upon which something has now to be written, not as a mere string upon which a note has to be sounded, but as a being which from the very first and as such, on the basis of the divine will and disposing, corresponds to this determination and is to fulfil it in freedom as summoned to obedience to the command of God. When God meets man as his Commander, the result is that man must recognise his own nature and being in its correspondence to the command of God. He sees that he is not indebted either to himself or to a third party for what he is, but to God alone, and that he therefore belongs to Him. He cannot, then, evade the command by appealing to his own nature or being. For he must see that he and his nature and being are referred to the command of God. He finds that he is called to bear witness to this command of God and therefore against his own disobedience. He finds himself summoned to be a living proof of the impossibility of this disobedience. Hence he does not merely experience in fact, but also recognises, that the command of God applies to him. Now we best understand this relationship if we conceive of it as a limitation, i.e., as God's ordaining and man's accepting of a limit. We must divest ourselves of the idea that limitation implies something derogatory, or even a kind of curse or affliction. When the reference is to the limitation which comes from God, limitation is not a negation but the most positive affirmation. Limitation as decreed by God means circumscription, definition, and therefore determination. Only the void is undefined and therefore unlimited. Differentiating the creature from Himself, God limits it to be His creature and thus gives it its specific and genuine reality. By the fact that He differentiates man as His creature from other creatures, He limits him to be man and thus distinguishes him above all creatures. By the fact that God separates this or that man as such from all other men, He limits him in this regard to be this particular man and thus treats him as soul, as subject, as himself, as an "I" who is to be addressed as "Thou." And by the fact that God has created and hitherto led this man with this particular nature, He has undoubtedly limited hint again in relation to all the other possibilities either omitted or suppressed in the process. In his life thus far he has had to be only this or that specifically. But it is precisely in this way that he finds himself fully affirmed and taken seriously by God. What does the little word "only" imply in this connexion? The regret which seems to be implicit in it is certainly out of place. When God wills and works "only" this or that, it means that He works "precisely" this or that. When God distinguishes and therefore limits, there can be no talk of a curtailment or impoverishment or deprivation of the one thus limited. His very limiting is His special, exalted, rich and glorious giving. His limiting is His definite, concrete and specific affirmation. The man who is limited by Him is the man who is loved by Him. Rather than tolerating our limitation with a sigh, we have every reason to take it seriously, to affirm it, to accept it, and to praise God for the fact that in it we are what we are and not something else.

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In the relationship characterised by this limitation the command of God comes to man and applies to him. The One who wills and orders man in His command, who claims him, who demands his obedience, is the God who has willed, created and ruled him already in the individuality and particularity ascribed to him. How, then, can His command be the disclosure of a general truth which allows of various interpretations, or the establishment of a general law which is to be applied by man in different ways as the one who executes it may judge? The command is put to man as limited by God. It concerns his nature and existence in their divine limitation. As surely as God has him in view,and His command seeks fulfilment in the free act of his obedience, so surely this command comes within the limit which the same God has set for him. Indeed, it is itself a limit as it applies to him and as God's glance and will are therein directed on him. It is a confirmation, renewal and enforcement of the limit which God has set for man as his Creator and Lord. It cannot, therefore, be strange to the man who hears it. It comes home to him. Providing that he hears it, he cannot resist it or complain that he is coerced. He necessarily finds himself understood and addressed by the One who meets him as his Commander. He necessarily sees himself obliged and engaged to be obedient. The just claim of the command becomes clear and strikes home. What, then, is man in his whole nature and being except what he is in relation to God as his Commander and therefore in the limitation imposed on him in this connexion? What more does the command want of him than that in all he may do or not do he should freely admit to being what he is in this relationship and therefore in this limitation? What is the command of God? It is the authentic interpretation in the imperative mood of man's being and nature by its Creator and Lord. The fact that it has authority as this interpretation in the imperative is inseparable from the fact that it is the Word of the One who is the Creator and Lord of man. The fact that it can be known and recognised by man in this authority is coupled with the fact that man in the limitation of his nature and being is the text which is expounded and authoritatively interpreted. It is thus that the command has majesty and power, not only in itself because it is the command of God, but in relation to man because it actually applies to him. This is the standpoint from which we must now understand it. Or rather, we must now emphasise that all the things which have thus far occupied us as the content of the command of God the Creator and Lord are to be understood from this standpoint. What God commands man, He commands with the special intention indicated in the limits which He has already set him as his Creator and Lord. The unique opportunity to which we must now turn in detail is simply human life in its limitation by birth and death. And the imperative of the command, to the extent that its target is the freedom of man within the limitation of his nature and being, is simply that this unique opportunity must be apprehended, grasped and used by man. (Cf. for what follows, C.D., III, 2, 630 f.; III,

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3,61 f., 84 f., and especially 229 f.) All other limitations and determinations of human nature and being are in some way enclosed in and contained by this first one. It represents all the others. It gives to all the others the character of lines within which the command of God is sketched and intimated. All the imperatives of the command of God, to the extent that their target is human freedom in its limitation, receive from the imperative here to be considered their distinctive force. The basic limitation in which the individual is what he is obviously consists in the fact that he begins and ends, that he is not therefore infinite, that his life is given a fixed span. The truth is plain, though it is often overlooked and seldom apprehended, that man exists only from the time of his birth to the time of his death. He has only this limited share in the existence of God's creation. What he is, he is in this time. The time ahead is not yet, and that behind is no longer, his own time. God has created and preserved him for existence in his particular time and therefore in none but his own life-time between birth and death. What is beyond does not belong to him. It is part of the pure promise of existence, not in another time, but in the eternity of God. Nor do the promise and hope of this eternal life refer to a continuation of his life in infinite time, but to bis limited life in his time, to its glorification, to the revelation of the omnipotence and mercy, of the faithfulness and patience, with which God has been and is and will be the Lord of his limited life in his time. When his time and all time shall have passed, he will be caught up by the eternal God as the one who exists in his time, not according to his nature, but according to the promise of God. Even from this standpoint he is only in this time of his. And this time will pass away. He himself in his time is transient. If God did not preserve him, he could not even be transient. And without the promise of God and hope in Him, he could only pass like a shadow on the wall. This is the great limit set to man. This is the great "only" which brackets his existence. He exists only in virtue of the projecting movement from his birth and the steepening ascent to his death. The story of his life is the drama of the encoun ter, conflict and co-operation of these two forces. Whatever happens to him, whatever he does, occurs under this sign and therefore under the sign of his own finitude. It is given character by the fact that he can be what he is only in his allotted span. If he can reflect that he must die, that in virtue of his finitude his life will actually end as it has actually begun, he does not know at all when this will happen or whether his span will be long or short Ultima (hora) latetEN2• He cannot even survey his time, let alone determine it. He can only exist in it so far and so long as he still actually has it. Will it be long or short? Will it, and he within it, pass quickly or slowly? It is remarkable that to the young man striding forward quickly time appears to be long and his movement in it gradual, so that he is deceived into thinking that time, and he within it, are unending; whereas to the older man advancing more slowly time becomes continually

EN2

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shorter and seems to pass by with increasing rapidity-"It is soon cut off, and we flyaway" (Ps. 9010)-so that he is deceived into thinking that he has no more time and nothing more within it.

To dispute whether life is short or long, is idle. It is given us only within these bounds, only within this slow or rapid movement from birth to death; and only thus can it be lived. That life is a loan on call is obvious from this standpoint. The offer of human existence is the offer of this loan, of this limited span, of the possibility of this transition. Those who are not pleased with this limit cannot be pleased with life. Those who resist it necessarily resist themselves, for they themselves are none other than those who are limited in this way. They could more easily leap over their own sha~ows than break free from this limitation. Behaviour which properly consists only in a desire to break free from it, to play the immortal, or to bewail one's mortality, can only terminate in selfdeception and self-destruction. The bracket in which man is held by bis beginning and end, and by which he is assigned his limited time as the only time he has, is unbreakable. But this is simply to say that the offer made to man is unique. The individuality, or singularity of each man is in the last analysis only a reflection of the uniqueness of the offer which is made to him. He now exists in his fleeting time as one who passes; and then he exists no more for ever. The offer will not be made again. Only on this one occasion when it is made can it be valued or despised, used or misused, by each. Then it will be recalled and never made again. All else is God's eternal counsel before the beginning, and His eternal promise after the end, of the existence offered man in his time. But the eternal disposing and consoling of God relate to the existence offered him in his time in all its uniqueness. They relate to this alone. This, then, is the great limitation in which man stands before God, in which God sees and understands and addresses him in truth. This man is the one intended in the command of God and summoned by Him to freedom in this limitation. To freedom in this limitation! It is quite wrong to be startled by the fundamental limitation in which man has his being. But it is right to ask concerning its positive meaning. For it is true that this limitation can and actually does become a threat, a curse, ajudgment and a punishment for man because he is a transgressor, because as a sinner he has betrayed himself into opposition to God and himself. It is true that sinful man, who necessarily fears God and at bottom himself, quite rightly recoils from the fact that his existence must really be only his unique and transient existence in his time. It is quite understandable that he should constantly seek with more or less success to explain this away in theory and forget it in practice. Our present reference, however, is to what is always true and valid in spite of the sin and transgression of man with its attendant darkness. Our reference is to the command of God the Creator which does not cease as such to be addressed even to fallen man as His creature. Where God speaks to man, in, with and under all else that God has to say, man is always reached by the command of the God who is His Creator. And

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when this command reaches him, there is a disclosure of his own nature and being, and therefore of the basic limitation, so that man's final word when faced with this limitation cannot be one of terror. What is meant by the uniqueness of the existence offered to man in a stipulated period of time? "Unique" means this one time exclusively. It means once and not twice; once and never again. The limitation which this implies is staggering. Man seems to be lost in an endless desert or on a tiny island. I am and can be only what I am this one time, in the few years of this single life-time. But let us think of it for a moment as the decree and arrangement of the creative and overruling will of God. Let us think of the limitation for a moment as the divinely willed and chosen determinateness of human existence. Have we not every cause to see the matter in this light? Has not God Himself become man in this absolute uniqueness? Did He find Himself only in a shattering lostness when in Jesus Christ it was and is and will be eternally true for Him, too, that He is this once and not again, even the second coming of Jesus Christ and His eternal kingdom being only a confirmation, only the eternal manifestation, of this "once and not again"? Or do we not have to say that when God in Jesus Christ entered the limitation which in His wisdom He willed to give and has actually given man, it was not for Him a pitiful portion but a rich dowry full of meaning and promise, a work of love and mercy rather than contempt and wrath? Is it not salutary for man to exist in this limitation? Is it not his supreme honour when in it he may see his relationship to God who in His eternity is ultimately the same as man is in his time, i.e., once-for-all and therefore single and unique, yet not on this account forsaken and lost, but rich and immeasurably exalted and therefore the Lord of all? Moreover, this unique being in temporal limitation is an offer made to man. His limitation may please him or not. He may come to terms with it or peevishly dream that another and much more distinguished offer might have been made. Nevertheless, this offer has been made, and it has been made by God. Thus, until its recall, i.e., so long as man is actually engaged in his transition, this offer is open, not accidentally, but by God's appointment. This is the very same offer which He Himself accepted when He became man in Jesus Christ. Since this offer is in fact made, since it is the only offer we shall have, and since it is made by God, it is surely worth our while at least to consider it seriously. What is offered with such exclusiveness by God is surely worthy of honour, attention and reflection, even though its significance may not be immediately apparent. There can be no doubt that the unique existence of man in his time, in his transition from the one point to the other, from birth to death, is a fact and event which is not irrelevant to God. This means, however, that God does not treat it as meaningless but as full of meaning, whether we agree or not. Hence we ought to change the contemptible little word "only" into "precisely" when we are dealing with the act of God. It is not "only" but "precisely" the existence of man in its limitation by time which is the object of the resolve of Him who is

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Lord of all to preserve and protect His creation, which He would not do if He did not love man, if He did not think him meet and worthy, if He did not have His intention for him on this assumption. Again, it is not "only" but "precisely" man in his uniqueness, as he passet by so quickly in this small sector of creation, who is the being for whom the eternal God waits in order that He may clothe him with eternal life according to His promise when his time and all time have passed, and therefore in order that He may cause him to participate in unbroken, direct and manifest fellowship with Himself. This would not be so if in man existing in this limitation He had not made and did not find and take seriously the being whom He thinks to be worthy of eternity, if He did not await him with pleasure even as this transient creature. What right have we to belittle our being in its transience? What right have we not to take ourselves seriously, as seriously as men can take themselves precisely as those who are transient? Did He not Himself become such a man for the sake of man in his time? What interests God can hardly lack interest for us. It is also possible, however, to view the matter positively in relation to man himself. We have seen that there can be no deciding whether the allotted time in which he is what he is will be long or short. There can be no doubt, however, that it has to be assigned and allotted and therefore limited if it is to be his tune and ifhe is to be within it a human subject, i.e., this particular man. In an unlimited and unending time he would obviously be an indefinite being dissolving both behind and before. He would have no centre, and therefore would not be himself. To be himself he must be constituted by his existence in time, by the appointed limits of birth and death. Once again we are not to say that "only" in this sector does he share in the creation of God, as ifhe were cut off from other sectors by being thus limited. On the contrary, this sector is his place within the entire creation. In becoming man, did not God Himself take such a definite place in His creation? Does He not govern it from heaven preciselyas the One who has taken His place on earth? But man is only creature and not Creator. In contrast to God, he is allotted a definite place in the earthly world. He would have no place at all in creation if he did not have this one. He would have no share at all in creation if not from this centre. Precisely from this point he is open in all directions. Here he stands in relation to all the spheres of creation, and all the spheres of creation stand in relation to him. We may confidently reverse the relationship for a moment. What would be the greatest without the smallest, or the whole if only a single one of its parts or spheres were missing? What would the cosmos be if man in his time were not at a definite point? The cosmos is not God, and man may boldly say: "If I did not exist-I in all the limitation of my being, I in my fleeting passage from birth to death-it would vanish in an instant and cease to be; for it needs me as much as I need it." Nevertheless, it is enough to see it from the standpoint of man. There is no doubt that here at his modest place within creation as a whole the earth is fruitful for him, all that it bears lives for him, the sun by day and the moon by night shine for him, the whole seemingly infinite world of stars keeps

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S 56. Freedom in Limitation its course for him-for him in the way which is appropriate to him, which is not the way for others before or after or even beside him, which is his and his exclusively. As he is what he is in his limitation, all other being exists precisely in relationship to him and for him. At this point he is integrated into the whole. That is, the order of the whole is in a supremely particular form his own order too. The macrocosm in his microcosm.

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It is hardly surprising that the question forced itself on the ancients, and is continually raised afresh, whether man's determination, i.e., the relationship between his own existence between birth and death in its special context and the existence of the created whole in the fluctuation of its content, is not merely a fact but also a discernible fact. Hence it is hardly surprising that there has been constant interest in the "nativity"or horoscope of individuals, i.e., the position of the sun and moon and the configuration of the planets at the hour of their birth in relation to the constellations of the month in question, with a view to determining from this form of the macrocosm the unique event or microcosm, ie., the individual himself, his special limitation, something at least of the specific content of his being, his character and possibilities, and sometimes rather more rashly the contours of his future and therefore the whole of his so-called fate. We may throw doubt on the answers given by the more prudent or imprudent forms of astrology and their technical presuppositions. Indeed, we are bound to do so. The decisive presuppositions, namely, that the position of the heavenly bodies understood in the light of the meaning of the traditional poetic names of the various planets and constellations, and especially their position at the hour of birth, are determinative for the relationship of the individual to the whole world and therefore for his special destiny, and also the methods employed for deducing the latter from the former, are all based on conjecture, even though this may be able to appeal to specific experiences. There is no evading the fact that both in ancient and more modern times some horoscopes have proved indisputably correct both in general and often in detail. Yet this does not justify us in pursuing answers of this nature. It does not mean that we should even think about them either in relation to ourselves or others. This is not because they finally rest on conjecture, nor because their presuppositions are doubtful, but primarily because even at best they can comprehend only the determination of man within the world, only his connexion with the cosmos, and not his freedom, far less the decree of God concerning him. If the question of the cosmic determination of the individual in his time is constantly raised, this rests, of course, on the truth that it is a genuine fact of whose fulness and variety we probably have little inkling. We are reminded of this fact by astrology, even though we have grounds, especially, I should say,of good taste, not to become involved in its disclosures even with reservations or as a sensational game. At this specific place and in this specific lifetime limited by his birth and death, man is wholly within the totality of the created world except for his freedom and the divine decree, and the whole created world is his world.

We must now go on to say, however, that at this modest place of his man is also set in human history. What we call universal history is his history even though he cannot fulfil Goethe's demand to take in a sweep of at least 6000 years. Man's question concerning the history of humanity is quite natural. But here, too, his answers or historical pictures are not vitally important. What is important is again the the fact that he is in history as he is what he is in his limitation. There would be no human history either individual or universal if man were an infinite, unlimited and therefore indeterminate being. For then

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there would be no human subjects, and therefore no real movement, no genuinely new beginnings or conclusions, in the co-existence and sequence of the subjects. The birth of new and the death of old men, and the consequent receiving and handing on, following and overtaking, criticising and renewing, are all necessary in order that things should take place, in order that events may be initiated and completed on earth. The relativity of human beings is necessary in order that they should be in a position relatively at least to undertake and execute. The constitution of human history is such that we really are beings of this kind. Each is in his own time, yet in this very form each is in the time of all. Each shares in what is done or not done by all. Each is an indispensable link in the chain. Here, too, the presence of each is absolutely necessary. Neither he nor others need know in what special way his existence in his time is important for the whole. The fact remains, however, that it is both important in itself and for universal history that, even though he may die as a child only one day old, he should still exist in his time and not the contrary. For each has his own place in the co-existence and sequence of events, in the series of new beginnings and conclusions. In this place each has also his function, which may well be concealed both from himself and others, but without the fulfilment of which the whole would not be what it is, and in the fulfilment of which the whole is also his whole. The fact that in history even the greatest are obviously only transitory, each having his time, each coming and then going again, means conversely that in history even the smallest are equally indispensable in their way, having their time too, and not coming or going in vain. Mter all, what is meant by great or small in real history, i.e., not the history which is found in books or newspapers, but history as it stands open to the eyes of God and is sometimes perhaps discerned by His angels? We must reckon with the fact that here again there are connexions and determinations which would astonish us if only we could see then. It is not important, however, that we should see them. What is important is that the cosmic determination and interconnexion of each individual is a fact. What is important is that the existence of each in his time and therefore in his given limitations is not an accident. He is not like a dry leaf or a grain of sand driven by the wind. He is no mere by-product. He has a definite necessity within his limits, so that his life cannot be lived and completed arbitrarily. What is important is that everything depends on each in his singularity, that universal history is not just reflected externally in that of the individual, but that the two are integral to one another. The individual neither can nor should despise the fact that he is this transient creature at this particular hour. This hour, as his hour, is the hour of man. Far from despising the fact that this hour is given him, he should be thankful for it and rejoice in it. But we have not yet said the decisive thing about the positive meaning of the limitation of human existence in its uniqueness. For Christian theology the fact that man has a share in the whole creation of God, in the cosmos and in history, can only be a dependent clause introducing the main sentence,

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namely, that in this way man is pointed directly to the grace of divine calling, that he is orientated on the covenant which God has made with man, that he is disposed for participation in the salvation history which proceeds from this covenant and which constitutes the fulfilment of the particular decree and Word and work which form the internal basis of creation and the centre and meaning of the whole cosmos and history. We refer soberly to the direction, orientation and disposition proper to man in the uniqueness of his existence. The very fact that man in his time is a limited being means that he takes part immediately, though perhaps blindly and deafly and dumbly, in the existence of the cosmos and historical life. We cannot say, however, that in and with this limitation of his existence he becomes immediately a man who is called by God, a partner in His covenant, a recipient and herald of the salvation accomplished by Him, a man "in Christ." For this something more is necessary: a special revelation of God in the special power of His Spirit; the service of the community commissioned to proclaim this special revelation; and finally, in relation to this special revelation, the special decision of repentance, faith and obedience on the part of the man himself. There is needed this interrelated special event between God and man if man in the singularity of his existence is really to take part in the centre and meaning of the cosmos in history, in the divine calling and covenant and salvation. Nevertheless, we can and should speak of a direction, orientation and disposition proper to man in the uniqueness of his existence. And this is the decisive thing which can be said positively as to its significance. It may not seem to be so strong as what we have said thus far. But it is infinitely more important. For what would it profit a man to gain the whole world, and in his individual history to experience and to help to determine universal history, if his limited existence as such were without relationship to the act of God which in His action as Creator and Lord of all things is the centre and telos of His whole activity in the cosmos and in history? Man's existence as such, however, is not without relationship to this opus propriumEN3 of God. There exists a correspondence-no more, but a real correspondence-between the free and gracious calling of God and the existence of man in his strict singularity. We can and must say that in his very existence, whether he realises it or not, man waits objectively to be the one intended in the call of God, to be known and loved by Him under the name which he now bears as this transient creature, and therefore truly to be called by this name. There exists a correspondence-again no more, but a real correspondence-between the covenant of God with man envisaged and established in creation and strangely assuming historical form in face of the transgression and sin of the creature, and man in his singular existence. We can and must say that man, even while he is what he is only in his time, is objectively designated, whether he realises it or not, to have in the EN3

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eternal God from whom he comes and to whom he goes not only his limit, the "Watcher on the threshold," but also his Covenant-partner, his faithful Father and Friend in spite of all his own unfaithfulness, so that he is also designated to be the covenant-partner, child and friend of God. Finally, there is a correspondence-again no more, but a real correspondence-between the mighty history of salvation chosen and effected by God, by the calling God as the Lord of the covenant, and man who cannot be what he is outside his limits, i.e., before his birth and after his death, and who from the standpoint of his inexorable limits is radically challenged and seems to be threatened in what he is, not to speak of the way in which he has compromised and jeopardised himself by his transgression and sin. We can and must say that this existence of man in limitation cries out objectively to be filled like an empty vessel, and that eternal salvation and deliverance from that threat come to him who is unable to help himself from the One who is both willing and ready to give them. This correspondence is the relationship of transient man to the opus propriumEN4 of God. The actual occurrence is found elsewhere in that special event. We can and must say,however, that on the basis of God's will in His creation and dominion man is destined for this event. We can and must say this because Jesus Christ, whether known or not, is in fact the Fellow of each man who exists and passes in his time. Jesus Christ is the centre and meaning of the cosmos and history. As man has a share in the existence of the cosmos and the life of history, Jesus Christ is objectively the centre and meaning of his existence too. And inJesus Christ the divine calling, covenant and salvation are shown not merely in a negative correspondence but as a positive reality, experience and revelation. Again and again we must point to the fact that in Christ God Himself has entered the limitation and singularity of man, that in Him God Himself has tabernacled (EaK~vwaEv In. 114) as One no less transient than we are, that in Hun God has had a tent like ours and recognised it as His creation and found it a worthy dwelling-place, that in Him God Himself has gone the way from birth to death. The Word became flesh. The fulness of the Spirit was at one place, a place like ours. The particular was enacted. His revelation occurred and its proclamation took place. The repentance, faith and obedience of man were enacted, not merely in a kind of transcendence, but in supreme immanence, at the heart of cosmos and history, themselves cosmic and historical, belonging not simply to the eternity of God, but from that eternity coming down into the life~time of man. Hence the time of this man, which as such was like that of every other man, was the tune filled and controlled by this particular event. In other words, it was a human time which as such was also God's time. And this man is the Fellow of all men, and all men are the fellows Of this man. Now, therefore, in the midst of the times of all others there is also this time, the time of God. Now, therefore, the time of all others, whether they see it or not, moves in the light and EN4

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meaning and promise of the past time of this man. Now the event which filled and controlled His time, as the event of the existence and action of God in unity with this man, has objectively occurred for them. We cannot say that they have a share in it, that they are all "in Christ." This would mean that what happened for them had also happened to them and in them. This would mean their recognition and knowledge of its occurrence for them. It would mean their hearing of the Word which became flesh, their receiving of the Spirit from that one place of His fulness. It would mean their gathering to the community which receives His revelation as true, and their entrance into its service. It would mean their own repentance in reliance on the repentance which that One completed perfectly for all, their own faith in the discipleship of the One who has preceded them in faith, the obedience of their faith as their faith in Him, the placing of their time under the laws of His. We cannot say this when we say that they are fellows ofjesus Christ and that He is their Fellow. What we do say,.what we can and must say, is that they have all been chosen from eternity to be "in Christ" in this sense, that this is their determination, and that they exist in their time for this, i.e., with this meaning and higher purpose. What is the time given them as seen from His time, the time of God? They have time as an opportunity, i.e., under the promise and with the goal that what happened in His time for them should also happen to them and in them. What is the limitation of their existence as seen from His time, the time of God? He in whose similarly limited existence God's calling and covenant and salvation were enacted is in reality the limit of their existence. His birth is the presupposition of their birth, and His death of their death. What is their once and for all transition within this limitation as seen from His time, the time of God? They do not come from a vacuum but from Him; they do not go into darkness but to meet Him. This is man's being in time, la situation humaineEN5, as seen from the standpoint of jesus Christ and His time. This is the direction, orientation and disposition proper to man precisely in the uniqueness of his existence as and because jesus Christ is his Fellow. The existence of man in the cosmos and his life in history are obviously only a kind of technical preparation for the fact that he may be man as thus elected and called to have his being "in Christ" and therefore that he may be fully man precisely in terms of his creatureliness. This then-and we refer to all our considerations as to the positive meaning of our existence in limitation-is the great disclosure which takes place when the command of God the Creator comes to man. It comes to him in the Gospel, with the light and in the power peculiar to the Gospel. Why should there not be this disclosure? There is thus no reason either to despise man's limitation or to shrink from it When the command of God comes to us, this limitation is shown to be an ineffable benefit. It is in his limitation that man is man. EN5

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It is in it that he stands before God. It is in it that he has a share in the whole work of God in nature and history. Above all, it is in it that he is the object of the eternal love in which God in Jesus Christ has become his Brother and acted for him, and that he can have a part in this love. God did not make a mistake of which we must bear the consequences when He created man as He did. He wills to have him thus, as this transient creature. We have every cause to be thankful to Him for this Limitation, and to rejoice in it. But what of the command in relation to transient man as such? From what has been said, it is clear that the command can well be unnatural, strange, uncomfortable, unexpected and unsuitable to him as a sinner and transgressor, but not in so far as he still remains the creature of God. For obviously the command meets him where he is. It corresponds and does justice to his existence and being. It demands of him only what he himself must desire from the standpoint of his own creaturely nature and existence. There can be no doubt, however, that in this respect the command of God has in the life of a man an urgency which is not so apparent from other standpoints and which may be rightly described as eschatological. From the form of the command of God here the whole of Christian ethics acquires an eschatological tone and character. For the direct concern at this point is with the existence of man in his time which is limited, which hastens on from its beginning to its end. What we have here is the call and warning, not of the finitude of human existence as such, nor of the mere frontier of this existence, nor of a dark future in some way illumined even if only in our existential experience and its interpretation, but of the Creator and Lord who has wiselywilled and created human existence in this finitude. This God calls and admonishes and warns us here precisely in view of the finitude of man and therefore urgently and with the demand for prompt and immediate obedience. Even as we speak, the time passes. We ourselves pass, and with us there passes irrevocably every minute of our time, including every minute in which we have only talked about the command of God when we should have been doing what is commanded. The command is not to be talked about; it is to be fulfilled and done even as it is heard. We hurry along, and, lot God is also in a hurry, though of a very different kind. What is it that He desires in correspondence with what we are, and therefore with the utmost urgency? The time in which we live is our place. It may be a modest place, but it is ours. As such, it is our place in the cosmos and in history, but also in relation to the particularity of the divine opus propriumEN6 which awaits us, to the calling, covenant and salvation of God, to Jesus Christ who became man for us. The will and command of God mean very generally that we are simply to recognise, take seriously and occupy this place as our own, as the place allotted to us. It is by no means self-evident that we should do this. Man prefers to be aloof and detached, in order that he may survey himself and what he does or omits to do EN6

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as if there were perhaps other possibilities open to him than those which are here presented, as if he had sovereign power to choose what to make of himself, when in fact he has no place at all except in bis passing time, and therefore he should make all possible speed to identify himself with this place and the unique opportunities which it presents. The command of God summons him to be wholly and exclusively the man he can be in this place and this place alone. It thus lifts him out of the stalls and sets him, not behind the stage, but on it, to appear at once and well or badly to say his little piece as appointed. For now, in his present time, he has his unique opportunity, and since he does not know how long it will last he must seize and use it. This is his opportunity to be man, to be in the totality and with the totality of creation, to allow his eyes to "drink what holds the eyelashes, of the golden opulence of the world," to receive and act and give in the nexus of human history, above all to share in the kingdom of God which has come to earth, and is to be manifested on earth, in Jesus Christ. All this does not simply fall into his lap. The limitation of his existence is indeed a fact, with all its implied promises. But his freedom in limitation must be verified and practised as his own freedom in resolve and act. The promises must be claimed. Otherwise what is objectively true in this regard is not true for him. Otherwise he himself is not within the truth of his creatureliness but somewhere outside. Otherwise he is merely vegetative or animal and not human. Otherwise creation is in fact there for him, yet as though it were not. Otherwise he is not a living subject but a dead object of history. Otherwise he is only on the circumference and not in the centre of God's work. Otherwise God's work of salvation has been in vain for him. Otherwise he misses the meaning of the whole and therefore of his own existence. On all sides he has his opportunity. He himself in his passing is one long and mighty opportunity. But the might of the opportunity is not enough in itself. The opportunity must be grasped. This is what the command of God requires of him. In regard to the existence

of man as such, and within the cosmos and history, the ancients

with different degrees of subjective earnestness saw this clearly enough, as we may judge from their Respice jinem!EN7 and Carpe diem!ENS In this regard we perhaps do well to listen to their wisdom, as also to the voice of Gottfried Keller in his Abendfeld. Yet such passing glances at the fleeting character of time and the appended self-exhortations to make the best use of it are one thing, but quite another the eschatological view of Christianity and the ethics based upon it. The urgency of the divine command carries with it a warning to seize our limited time as a unique opportunity, and a summons to freedom within this limitation, only when we are aware that the cosmos and history, and with them our own existence in this sphere, have their meaning in the calling and covenant and salvation of God, and their centre and significance in Jesus Christ. When we realise this, then our realisation of the limitation of existence will differ from the half sad and half cheerful vagueness and freedom from obligation of lyricism. For then we do not see only our limit or frontier as such. Nor will

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The Unique Opportunity

the force of our sharp and clear vision in this direction be that of our own mind or understanding. It will be that of a light which shines from beyond the frontier and enlightens us, first giving us new eyes with which to see ourselves. Our attention will be aroused and claimed by a completely new fact, namely, by the Lord of the world and history who is as such our gracious God from whom we truly have our being and to whom we truly go. With the Eg av'TOV ENgand the El~ av'Tov ENI0we find and see our frontier drawn absolutely, sharply, compulsorily and definitively. Yet it is not that God is our frontier, although this is also true. It is rather that God is our frontier. This is the decisive new thing which arouses our attention when we come to see this centre of the whole and therefore of our own existence. This is the thing which claims us and will not let us go again. When we know that God is our frontier, not in our own strength but in the strength of God, all our presentiments and reflections on the fleeting character of time, if not wholly futile, are at least superficial and snperflous, because they are covered and transcended by the truth itself speaking to us. Above all, even the best self-exhortation which we may attempt in this regard is completely displaced by the command imperatively given us with superior authority from beyond. We speak of the specific consciousness of time characteristic of the New Testament witnesses. What do they know and say of time? Obviously not just that it is limited, unique and finite, i.e., that it has the peculiarity that one day it must end and then be past, but rather that it is the last time, that it is time really coming to an end, that its ending is already an event and in process of completion. These men are still in time, but in a time which already bears its end in itself, so that, to the degree that it still continues, it hastens towards birththis image is actually used in 1 Thessalonians 53-and therefore the revelation and realisation of its end. How did they arrive at this concept of time? Certainly not on the basis of a general feeling of their temporality or on general considerations about the nature of time and man's existence in it, but quite concretely in relation to their own life-time, i.e., to something which drew near for the first time in their time, to Jesus Christ whom they heard and saw and contemplated and handled in their time as the One who "wasfrom the beginning," as "the Word of life" (IJn. 11), and in and with Him, as the fulfilment of time (Mk. 115; Gal. 44), the kingdom of God (Mk. 115).This kingdom drew near and came right up to them, and with it the end of time. Making use of the same expression, 1 Peter 47 reads: 7TaV'TWV 'TO 'TEAO~ ~YYLKEV ENl1,and Romans 1312:~fLEpa EN12(the new day of a new order of all things) ~YYLKEVENI3. This is the event to which they in their time bore witness. But does not their time actually continue? Are they not still in their time? Certainly, but only as they are in the time of the revelation, declaration and realisation of their time in its hastening towards the end which has already come. Hence this event which is still to come, for the sake of which they are still in time and in relation to which they still have it, is called the d7ToKaAvt/JL~ 'TOV Kvptov EN14(1 Cor. 17; cf. 2 Thess. 17; 1 Pet. 17 13;413).What is at issue is the manifestation ofJesus Christ as the One He is, as the Lord; and therefore the revelation of the beginning of time posited in Him, and also of its goal and end. It is with a view to this coming event that time still exists and men are still in it. Time is now the time in which those who have come from Him wait for Him and hastes to meet Him (2 Pet. 312).We must see and grasp three points in detail and in their interconnexion if we are to understand this consciousness of time in the New Testament. Time as the time of this man is time ruled by the Lord EN9 from him ENIO to him ENI1the end of all things is at hand ENI2day ENI3is at hand ENI4the appearing of the Lord

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who has already come but is still to be manifested. It is therefore short. And its duration is not known. As time is limited and defined at its beginning by His coming and at its goal by His manifestation, so it belongs to Him in its progression. With all its content, it is (1) ruled and limited by Him. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock" (Rev. 320). The time in which men now exist is simply the time between His knocking and His entering. As this "last hour" (1 In. 218), it is wholly His hour, even though it is also an hour of time and belongs to time as such. It should be noted how closely its beginning and end are brought together in the Gospel of John: ''Verily,ver~ly,I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life" Un. 524). And if possible even more strongly: ''Verily,verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live" Un. 525). There is no identification of the beginning and the end (note the future in v. 25), but it is quite evident that there can be no question of any other decision, judgmen t, or ruling apart from that of the One who heve stands at the beginning and end on the almost imperceptible line between them. In this interval, therefore, the world can only be transitory (1 Cor. 731; 1 In. 217). Now that the last hour has struck, the world can only retire. Moreover, in this interval the world has neither breath nor space nor opportunity to make indiependent claims or to exercise influences different from and perhaps even opposed to those of the Lord. Its end, i.e., the manifestation of its end in and with that of the Lord, is too near for this (1 Cor. lOll), as is also the beginning of another world, commencing with the manifestation of the Lord, of the new heaven and the new earth (2 Pet. 313). The vanishing of the night and the breaking of the day (1 Thess. 54f.; Rom. 1312) have begun and can no longer be stopped. Because the same Lord stands at the beginning and the end, because He is the Alpha and the Omega, the One who is and as such the One who was and the One who comes, because He is at both points the 'TT'aVTOKpaTwp EN15 (Rev. 18), the time between, which is no longer that of His first parousia but not yet that of His second, is His time, the time ruled by Him. On the same basis, this time is (2) short. In the New Testament "short" denotes an internal rather than an external quality. It is not related, therefore, to the few or the many years and centuries of this interval which some might feel to be long, but to the character of this interval as time which in relation to its Whither and Whence is only passing away.To use the image of Paul (1 Cor. 729), it is a KaLpo~ aVVEaTaAfLEVO~ EN16, a time which is drawn and contracted together, its beginning and end being as it were pushed together and even into one another and therefore shortened. Hence it is a limited time, limited by the will and work of its Lord. It is again one of the distinctive features of the Fourth Gospel that the special time of the beginning, of the "working" of Jesus Himself at the heart of human history, is more than once emphatically described as a fLLKPO~ Xp6vo~ EN17 Un. 733; 1235). Thus the Johannine Jesus says of Himself: "I must work the works of him that sent me as long as it is day: the night cometh when no man can work" On. 94). This day, then, also came to an end; and this night came. And this was and is the end which the time between this day and the approaching day of manifestation has in itself from the very beginning. The interval, then, must inevitably change from one whose comfortable progress might go on indefinitely to a KaLpo~ aVVEaTaAfLEVO~ EN18, to the vvv EN19 which is almost comparable with the stroke and EN15 EN16 ENl7 EN18 ENl9

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flash of lightning which is Paul's wayof describing it, to the a~fL€pOV EN20 of the Epistle to the Hebrews. But the pressure which makes it a short time is also exerted by its end, by the second coming of Jesus Christ in His manifestation. That He is the Lord cannot remain concealed for long. There are no more times in which we can act as though this concealment were simply the height or distance of a human ideal of the future, forgetting and ignoring His lordship. No, the fact that He is the Lord can remain hidden in time only in the sense that this time must be wholly spent in anticipation of Him, and is thus a short time, because He is expected and already knocking, and His manifestation is the terminus ad quem EN21 of time. What makes time short is not the constriction of calendar days but the actuality of His presence at the beginning and the end. Hence even through the succession of calendar days and years time cannot be long. Whether it encompasses many or few calendar periods, time is short as and because it is his time. On the same basis (3) its duration is unknown to those who live in it. They know indeed that it is His time and that it is therefore a short and limited time. They do not know, however, at which point in time they will come up against its frontier. They do not know where or when the decreed end of time will be revealed and time, their time, will finally be at an end. The New Testament witnesses regard as an unknown quantity the Where or When of the frontier ahead. They even expressly make it an unknown quantity for the man Jesus (Mk. 1332). This does not mean, however, that they think of the future as empty or abstract. The purpose of all the passages which touch on this, e.g., the parable of the householder who does not know when the thiefwill come (Mt. 2443f_), or the servant who does not know when his lord will return (Mt. 2445£.), or the bridesmaids who cannot tell when the bridegroom will arrive (Mt. 251£.), is not to impress upon us that we are in darkness regarding the future but to make it plain that in this interval we must orientate ourselves by the fact that time is expiring quickly rather than by a known point when it will reach its end. Whether used or misused, it will suddenly be gone. As the thief comes in the night (cf. 1 Thess. 52), as the lord returns to his house, as the bridegroom arrives for the celebration, so at the hour chosen by the Lord but not previously intimated, the end will be suddenly revealed to those who wait. They can only wait far the One who will come suddenly and put an end to their time. They cannot make special preparation for a known hour, for this would mean that they need not wait for Him at other hours when He is not expected, and they might thus spend these hours as if they did not form part of the time which in its brevity belongs to Him. This brings us back to our present question of the form of the command in relation to the limitation of our existence. This third factor, i.e., that man does not know the terminus ad quemEN22 of the intervening period, and therefore of his limited existence in his time, is what gives the command and warning and admonition and summons issued to man in the New Testament its character of extreme urgency, its eschatological character. How we misunderstand the New Testament if we try to deduce from its understanding of time the view that man should idly wait with folded hands for the return of Christ, for the manifestation of the end which time carries within itselfl How can we have seen that the limitation of our time is divinely ordained if we do not hear the call to awaken which is alwaysto be heard when God is at work? What is the consequence of the fact that the disciples of Jesus can have the light with them only for this short time? What was the consequence for Jesus Himself? "I must work ... while it is day" Un. 94), and therefore: "Walkwhile ye have the light, lest the darkness come upon you .... While ye have the light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of the light" Un. 1235£.). What is the consequence of the fact that our present is only

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an instant? "We,then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)" (2 Cor. 6lf.). Is to-day simply a passing day? By no means: "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened I through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end" (Heb. 312f.).And therefore: "To day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts" (Heb. 37, 15;47). What does it mean that the end of all things has already begun, and that time and human existence are to be seen and fulfilled only from this standpoint? That it is not worth while to take them seriously? Quite the contrary! Just because this is true, there is a demand for prudence, soberness in prayer, persevering love, generosity, the service of each according to the gift which he is given, speech and action in responsibility before God and in the strength to be expected and received from Him (I Pet. 47f.).Just because the night is vanishing and the day dawning, there must be no more sleeping as though we had not yet realised it and were still living in the night in the illusion that we might still live on in peace and safety (I Thess. 53). No, we must awake and "walkhonestly as in the day" (Rom. 131lf.).We must put on "the whole armour of God." We must admonish one another and edify one another (I Thess. 54f.).For what purpose do we have this time of ours? It is for us a kind of market or exchange that we might make the most of it (Egayopa'Eo8aL EN23)in careful transactions, "not as fools, but as wise" (Eph. 515f.;cf. Col. 45). What is required of the householder or the servant or the virgins who know well enough that someone is to be expected but do not know when? It is required that they should both wait and watch, that they should watch without a break, that they should be constant and faithful as though he were due at once and might come any moment. We can see that New Testament ethics is one powerful summons to take frankly and seriously the existence of man in his limited time as such and therefore to grasp it to-day, at once, this very moment, as his opportunity. But the power of this summons lies in the fact that it understands the time of man-obviously the time of every man-as a moment within the interval of time which begins and ends withJesus Christ, which belongs to Him, in which man also belongs to Him, which is short, and in which the only thing known to man is that time, already bearing its end in itself, can suddenly come to an actual end. The summons of New Testament ethics is urgent. Everywhere it emphasises that the limited time loaned to man is important because everywhere it sees concretely, not merely that this time has a limit, but that God is its limit. Thus in its preaching of Jesus Christ it does not proclaim the man who is in some wayhalted by his limitation, and it certainly does not proclaim the faith of this man, but it proclaims the Lord who is superior to the man existing in this limitation, yet who has turned to him in His superiority. The Word of this Lord is the command. And it is a real command, not just the feeling or contemplation of something which the command might be. And this command is to the effect that in his limitation, as he takes himself seriously in his time and makes use of it as the unique opportunity presented to him, man is to become and to be a free man.

Every act of man, therefore, must be measured and tested by the question whether it is a seizing or neglecting of the unique opportunity presented to him in his time. When it is put from this standpoint, the question of obedience has a distinctive and critical edge. We can think of decisions, acts and attitudes which may seem to be blameless, right and good from other angles, and yet we EN23

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are startled if we ask what is their significance as an accomplishment of what is fitting for my particular existence in my particular time. We have perhaps done too little, or too much, or acted too differently, to be able to say responsibly that what we have done is really "timely" for us. But the converse may also be true. Our resolutions, acts and attitudes may surprise or provoke most of our fellows, and perhaps even to some extent ourselves, and yet in them we are choosing that which, doubtful though it may seem from other standpoints, is timely for us, so that in them we seize and grasp our unique opportunity and are thus more justified than we even dare to concede to ourselves. This question reaches deep into the roots of life where we are all more or less completely hidden even from ourselves. Do I see and understand the opportunity which is given me with my life in time to be a man, to be in the world, to be a fellow-man, to be a Christian? And if I think I see this opportunity, when do I grasp it and when do I miss it? Here again and especially, only God can truly judge. No man can properly judge either his fellows or himself. We have to reckon with the fact that in its general characteristics a life might appear to be the fulfilment of what is intended for a particular man within his limits, but then there comes in this life the mighty test of a special concrete decision in which his life as a whole is suddenly laid in the scales, and in the making of which it will to some extent be shown in nuceEN24 whether his obedience in other respects has been and is genuine. What if he should fail in this single instance, and therefore, since everything now depends on this instance, in the whole? What if he should miss his opportunity? On the other hand, we have to reckon with the fact that the life of another man might seem to be bungled to the very end because hardly appropriate to his time, but then one day he, too, finds himself in the balance. Perhaps without realising its importance, he must make a concrete decision which affects his whole life. And, lo! this is his shining hour in the midst of darkness. He does not fail at this point, but for once he grasps the opportunity. Might he be accepted as a whole for the sake of this one time? These are questions which none can answer either in relation to others or to himself. We must all of us realise, however, that within the whole these unique opportunities, which are full of threat for some and of promise for others, may be the ultimately decisive questions, and that they will not remain unanswered, or be answered wrongly, by God.

We shall now seek to establish certain criteria to enable us to see to some extent whether we are obedient or disobedient to the command of God as understood from this particular angle. 1. One such criterion must undoubtedly be that we treat the occupation of our place as the right one assigned to us with the greatest possible openness and yet also the greatest possible resolution. The place of one man in his time may be closely or remotely similar to that of many others, or it may be important to him precisely because of its dissimilarity. He will find himself addressed by the existence of many others in their time. He may even find that he is called to seek his place in their vicinity, or as a place which either positively or negatively corresponds to theirs. This orientation by others, this readiness to learn, to follow, or to oppose, is fundamentally legitimate. It is not for nothing that both in the Church and the world we live alongside others. None can EN24

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make do with mere resolution. Each must know openness to the ways of others. This is in the last resort indispensable. We should be fools ifin making use of our opportunities we did not look for examples and teachers, for comrades and brothers. The man who more or less exactly discovers his opportunity and more or less decisively grasps it has always definitely to thank others afar or near who have in some way been able to stimulate, encourage and equip him to do so, even if only by issuing the warning and deterrent: "Be a man, and do not follow me." If he despises others, if he does not want to learn how others find their way in their time, he must not be surprised if he finally awakens at a place which he does not recognise in the least to be his own, but into which he has been betrayed by his own foolhardiness, as though accidentally into a hole in the ground. Indeed, since small or large corrections and completions are absolutely necessary for all of us in this matter right up to the very last moment, none can ever be too open to the ways of others. Nevertheless, our concern is to seek and to traverse our own way, to occupy the place which can only be our own place in our own time. Others can advise or help us as models or even as warnings; but resolution in seizing our unique opportunity must be our own. We can orientate ourselves by them; but neither positively nor negatively can we conform to them. Our openness is good. So, too, are our helpers and advisers, our examples and warnings. But they are good only in so far as they serve to help us to resolve. To resolve does not mean to close one's eyes to others. In fact, a correct resolve for the existence which is possible only in its own time and within its own limits may be recognised by the fact that it is not a turning away from others but a turning to them, not a breach of fellowship with them but a retention. Yet resolving as such, for all the continuing and self-renewing openness, is undoubtedly an act in isolation, in which something is chosen, much that others grasp on their way being renounced and many things in which they apparently have no interest being adopted. The command of God, which has as its goal the free man in his limitation, always demands both a resolute renunciation and a resolute adoption in relation to what is more or less intensively proposed by the example of our fellows. Resolution, when demanded as obedience, has for all of us the character of a risk, i.e., the risk of being among our fellows, without narrow-mindedness or vanity yet also without shame, that which we alone can be between our birth and our death, no matter how many charming or irritating neighbours or relatives we may have who want to influence us in different ways. The only result ofirresolution is the man of cliches who is characterised by what he thinks to be impressive or advisable as the average of his fortuitous environment, as the man in the street, but who is fundamentally characterised by fear of the isolation and risk without which no one can take his place or grasp his opportunity. And the man of cliches is in the same category as the fool for all the apparent differences. The man who is genuinely open and the man who is genuinely resolved, however, not only belong to the same category but are possible and actual only in one and the same person.

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2. The man who views life as his unique opportunity may be recognised by the fact that, since he is seriously claimed and occupied, he has no time to lose but knows how to make time and to take time. The decisive element in this criterion is that the man who in face of the limitation of his existence knows that the criterion is valid now, to-day and at once is claimed and occupied, not merely by his work, although by this too, but also by his fellow-men who are united or who otherwise come in contact with him, by their existence and nature, by the weakness from which he sees them suffer or the burdens which ha sees them carry, by the questions which they ask him and the concerns of which they make him a partner, and even beyond his fellow-men by the nexus of the great and little events among which his life-story unfolds, by the natural cosmos with whose forms and colours and sounds he is surrounded on every hand and to which he in bis time also belongs, and then finally and supremely, or primarily and most profoundly, by the service of God in His Church in which, when he hears and obeys the command of God, he will recognise the basis and bracket of his whole being in his time. If he seizes his time as his unique oppor tunity, it will mean that he is seized by all this, that he is present in it all, and that he is not therefore his own spectator. From first to last, from the most important to the least important, all this demands and needs him and calls for his presence. There is no escaping the fact that it pulls and tugs and gnaws at him on every side, certainly in different ways, yet always in such sort that it seeks to claim him and that he must now be in this place for it and correspond to it. And he has only this one time for all that which seeks to occupy him and with which he should occupy himself. It would be wonderful if he had three or four successive times, but it is our limit to have only this one. In it, God knows, we have no time to lose. Those who imagine that they have time to idle away, or that they can "beguile" their time, show that from this standpoint they are flagrant sinners who have certainly not yet occupied their places. Otherwise they would know better. Otherwise they would always be occupied in some way, always trying to meet an urgent demand, always able to value and utilise every quarter of an hour. This must not be taken to mean, of course, that we must allow ourselves to be harassed on all sides. To concede this would be the delusion of infinity in which man is not to live and in which he can only destroy himself. It would not be the freedom in limitation to which he is called. The command of God is what claims man, not his work, or his lovable or unlovable fellows, or history, or the cosmos. Not even that which may theoretically or practically seem to him to be the service of God and His Church is the true and genuine form of the claim which he must satisfy. The true and genuine form of this claim is the command of God as it applies to him specifically within the limits of his time and with the demand that he should satisfy it within these limits. To be free in limitation means that in obedience to the command of God as it applies to each in detail man should make a choice between all the things which can and will take up his time, that he should select that which is to occupy him and with

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which he must occupy himself. Not anything or everything can or should actually lay claim to him; not anything or everything can or should pull and tug and gnaw at him. We do not refer merely to the command of an egotistic hygiene in consequence of which man has the right and even the duty to protect himself, to ward off and leave for others that which is too much or too strange or in some way not suitable for or agreeable to him. Precisely that which is too much or too strange, precisely that which is not suitable or agreeable, precisely that from which he would rather protect himself, might well be the very thing which he is commanded by God to shoulder. What the command of God always does in fact demand of him, however, is that he should obediently select. He has no time at all to lose, i.e., none of the time which he needs to do what is required. Indeed, to do what is required he must make time. With all the demands which crowd in upon him he must know how to give preference to one thing and to set aside another. He must know how to concentrate and therefore how to separate the centre from the periphery, or from the many peripheries in question. In this way we can make time for ourselves when we never have enough time or know where to find it in face of the many things that we might choose. We must take time-resolution is again needed-where we might use it but are not strictly summoned to use it, in order that we may have it and use it better as commanded by no other court than that of the divine command. We must be able to tear down if we want to build up. If the building for the sake of which we tear down is not the arbitrary enterprise of a Babel tower, nor a whim of individual fancy, but the work which we are categorically commanded, then we are not mistaken in tearing down or setting aside or letting alone or leaving to others other work which might well be intrinsically good and beautiful. We are far from being indispensable at every point. It is simply a relic of the delusion of infinity, or a sign that we have made a bad and disobedient selection, if we have a bad conscience in relation to what we cannot undertake for lack of time, or if we allow side-glances at it to disturb or unsettle us in what we can and should do. Man is everywhere caught up in the limitation of his time, and in no circumstances has he time to waste. Since, however, he has only one time, he must only grasp one thing at a time and make time for it in order that he may rightly grasp what is commanded. In sum, the man who takes seriously his unique opportunity may be recognised by the fact that he does not take part in the many things which claim others, and which in themselves might well claim him, but gives himself wholly to that which seriously claims him. He may be recognised by the concentration of his zeal. He may be recognised by his composure. Many things, indeed all things, might concern man, but not all things do in fact concern him. The command of God certainly will not leave him in the lurch in the freedom of choice necessary in this respect. He must see to it that when he exercises the freedom with which this choice must be made he does so in responsibility to the command of God. But this freedom is undoubtedly meant to be exercised.

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3. The man who takes seriously and seizes his unique opportunity differs from the one who does not by reason of the fact that he alwaysremembers that he will die and yet never fears death. We have no option but to say that this is the central and decisive criterion from the standpoint of Christian theology. Those who do not live with the New Testament in this regard do not do so at all. And if we do not live with the New Testament in this regard, how we need the grace of God and forgiveness for this great sin! When we know the grace of God, however, we also hear His command which cannot be shaken or altered by our disobedience. That we shall die is the limit of our existence in time somewhere ahead of us. Then it will be all up with us. Then we shall have occupied our place or not. Then we shall have grasped or missed our opportunity. Then it will be too late for any corrections or completions. Then the written or printed book will no longer be in our hands but in the hands of the public exactly as it is. Then God will read it as it finally lies before Him. We may forget this "then." We may push it down into the sub-conscious. We may refuse to consider it. We may not take it into account in what we do to fill up our time. Yet this does not alter in the slightest the fact that we shall die. It simply means that we fail to understand ourselves. It means that we deal with ourselves as with strangers. It means that we fail to be what we really are. For our existence is our existence in our time, and to this time there belongs decisively its end, i.e., that we must and shall die. This has to be accepted as a familiar element in our life. "Since death is (strictly) the goal of our life, for several years I have made myself so acquainted with this true, best friend of man that its aspect no longer has anything to terrify me but much to calm and comfort. And I thank my God that He has granted me the good fortune to make the opportunity-you understand me-of learning to know it as the key to our true happiness. I never go to bed without thinking that, young as I am, to-morrow I may no longer be. Yet there is none of my acquaintances who can say that I am morose or sad in deportment. And for this happiness I thank my Creator every day, and wish it for my fellowmen from the bottom of my heart." (W. A. Mozart to his father, 4th April, 1787.)

Ifwe do not consider that we shall die; if we do not press on from this truth to the required openness and resolution; if we do not let it forbid us to lose time and command us to make time for ourselves, then we are not genuinely and properly what we are. For it is this which gives to our life the accent of uniqueness and therefore to the whole task imposed upon us its urgency. We must consider (Ps. 9012) that we shall die. Otherwise we cannot be wise. And without wisdom the true and proper life for which we are destined is quite impossible. In face of this limit, however, we can go to the opposite extreme and be afraid of death. Indeed, we prefer not to think about it just because the thought of it is such that we fear it. It is not a pleasant thought that we shall die and be dead. Perhaps the truth comes out more clearly when we put it the other way.Just because we prefer not to think about dying, we are bound to fear it and the thought is necessarily unpleasant.

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~ 56. Freedom in Limitation It is indeed unpleasant to think that some day I shall be a corpse whom others will leave and go home chatting after they have heaped wreaths and flowers and poured out kind words and music upon me. It is indeed unpleasant to think that my place will then be in a coffin or urn a few feet below the surface of the ground. It is indeed an unpleasant thought that for a time I will then be missed up above in the daylight, but that I will be finally extinguished from human memory when the last of those who knew me has gone the same way. This is undoubtedly the kind of death which awaits us with absolute certainty. This is undoubtedly-hence the unpleasantness of thinking about it-the form of the end of our existence in our time and the conclusion of our transience.

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The unpleasantness of the thought of death, however, is only the form of the real fear of death. And at a pinch we can avoid this form. As is well known, the thought can be poetically transformed. It can then present itself as a lofty thought. But the real evil, the genuine fear of dying, is linked with the fact that when we die and are dead we have come to our end and shall no longer be, so that it will then be too late for anything. No one can assent to this on his own authority, i.e., without God. For who can assent on his own authority, i.e., without God, to the fact that one day he will be no more and that it will be too late for the things he would still like to insert? But we do assent to it when we die, for then we can do nothing about it, whether it is pleasant or not. This is the great contradiction which we face. It is the most radical of all the contradictions in which we may be implicated. It seems to be an absolute contradiction. That we shall be no more might mean, and even seems to mean, that we shall be annihilated, that our future is obliteration. The real fear of death is related to this contradiction. The thought of it is more than unpleasant; it is terrifying. Yet from the human standpoint, without God, it is unavoidable. There must be no mistaking the fact that it is characteristic of all the different forms of the real fear of death that they apparently have nothing to do with fear, that they take the guise of repressions or conquests of it, that in them we never admit even to ourselves, let alone to others, that we are driven by fear. What is common to all forms of fear, and characterises them as such, is that we should all like to evade ourselves, i.e., ourselves in our transience, in our uniqueness, in the limitation of our existence; that we do not really want to see ourselves as we are, as those who one day will be no more, as those for whom it will one day be "too late." Beyond this obvious end of man's existence in his time, and therefore beyond his dying, man can ascribe to himself, or at least to his soul, an infinitude, a so-called immortality, in a time which is supposed to be still ahead. This is a typical thought inspired by fear. For it would be so consoling if things were different, if the frontier of dying towards which we are hurrying, the contradiction which awaits us, were not quite so dangerous but could somehow be overcome. This consoling thought usually takes good care not to betray itself as the expression of fear which it really is. But man can flee from himself in other ways as well, even though he may renounce the idea of continuance in the hereafter beyond death. He can constantly repeat to himself, and rightly so while he is still alive, that in any case he is not yet dead, and therefore that he need not think about death, that he is still free to do with himself in the time which remains

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anything that may appear to him to be fine and jolly, that he may give free rein to his mild or coarser caprices or even to chance, and therefore that he may make the best possible use of his existence in transition. This is again a typical expression of fear. Only a few good frightening strokes are needed and at once I persuade myself that I am not really the person who one day will die, so that as I now am I need not worry about what will one day happen to that other me. But this shabby self-deception takes good care not to betray itself as an expression of fear. It is probably the fairly cheerful origin of the Carpe diem EN25 of Horace. Man can evade himself in yet another way.He can adopt in thought a godlike position"Proud heart of mine, be to thyself sufficient!" (Heinrich Leuthold)-within the cosmos and history, and from this position watch his own transition and approaching departure-how he was once a budding and then an unfolding leaf on the tree of historical life and in the soil of cosmic and therefore universal life, how he now seems to be turning an autumn red and yellow and will one day fall off quietly and peacefully and return to the earth upon which and by which the tree which bore him, and which still gives him his life, will continue to live the life of humanity within the cosmos and will bring forth many more leaves. This is again a typical expression of fear. How simple it would be if man could see and arrange things thus, if there were no God to see and arrange things for him, for him in his uniqueness irrespective of his continuity with earth and tree and other leaves, for him specifically and directly as this one, for him with the question of the responsibility which he owes, not to a real or chimerical continuity of all things, but directly to God Himself! This expression of escape and fear, however, is far too noble and aesthetic and refined to admit to what it really is.

To consider that we shall die means, in contrast to all attempts at evasion, to accept oneself; to assent to that to which we can assent only with God; to admit that one day we shall no longer exist but will stand before a final "too late." That we must assent to this can be accepted and understood only as the command of God and achieved only with the God who has Himself assented to it in Jesus Christ. Otherwise we shall alwaysbe fundamentally afraid of this frontier ahead. Otherwise we shall always try in some way to avoid taking it seriously, i.e., taking ourselves seriously in our existence in this limitation. Otherwise we shall try to evade ourselves in one direction or another. To consider that we shall die, and therefore to accept ourselves, can be done only on the basis of the New Testament understanding of time, according to which we have our Lord at the beginning of our time, but also at its end as well, and therefore within it, so that He is the frontier ahead and it is to Him that we move. The command: Memento moriEN26 imposes this understanding of time upon us. And formally at least obedience to this command fundamentally consists simply in the acceptance and affirmation of this understanding of time. Surprisingly enough, however, obedience to this rightly understood Memento moriEN27 is the very opposite of every morbid alienation from or convulsive denial of life. For what else can it mean but that man should watch and not sleep, i.e., that he should take seriously the opportunity, the given instant, to-day, time, so long as he has it? The fact that Memento moriEN28 means concretely Memento EN25 EN26 EN27 EN28

Seize the day! Remember that you will die! Remember that you will die! Remember that you will die!

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DominiEN29! gives qualified importance to this opportunity in its uniqueness. I in my uniqueness have to do this one time with the unique God in relation to whom everything is "now" decided concerning me, who in relation to this "now" of mine finally decides concerning me with absolute competence and authority. It is my opportunity. But it is given me by Him. Hence it is my opportunity for Him. This demands, yet also establishes, my freedom to recognise and apprehend it. This makes the recognition and apprehension both honourable and joyful. He is now dealing with me, and I with Him. How can there be anything but freedom and joy? It is my passing opportunity. But in it I pass from Him to Him. He awaits me at my end. I thus pass before Him and under His eyes. This gives my transience its seriousness and responsibility. Although my opportunity is passing and will end with my departure, it is fraught at every step with this significance, with the claim that I should perceive and meet it. The departure which brings it to an end, however, is such that I can neither see nor control the coming of this event. God can do both. So far as knowledge of this event is concerned, I am referred completely to His knowledge; and so far as its coming is concerned, I am referred completely to His decision. I may and must hold fast to Him. This means that at every step which I make in passing there is nothing left for me to do except to commend myself wholly and utterly into His hands. It means that I can really take each of my steps only as if it might be the last, as if afterwards it might be too late, as if my opportunity, my instant, my to-day, my time, might immediately be over and I myself summoned to account as the one I have finally been. All this means, however, that I must watch. Consideration of the inevitability of death, then, is not a paralysing consideration. In it we do not grow weary; our eyes do not close; our hands are not allowed to sink; we do not dream; we do not try to escape from ourselves in some way.We have no time for such things. On the contrary, our time is fully claimed by the permission and command to accept ourselves, to take ourselves seriously, not as divine or immortal, but as the creaturely and obviously finite beings that we are. We neither can nor will do this in an abstract consideration that we must die. The recognition of the importance of the unique opportunity, the freedom and joy, the seriousness and responsibility, the constant readiness with which we shall apprehend this, the required manliness to accept ourselves in our transience-all these depend wholly and utterly on the fact that the Lord is the frontier toward which we move, that it is He who awaits us there, that He comes to us from there and calls us. Yes, this is just what He does. He thus qualifies the fact that we must die. He qualifies, therefore, our consideration of this fact. He makes this consideration a command. He cuts away all the excuses and evasions at which we might try to snatch in an abstract consideration of our death. He leaves us only that watching, that recognition of the EN29

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importance of our unique opportunity, that freedom and joy and seriousness and responsibility and const~nt readiness to take it seriously, that manliness to take ourselves seriously even though this includes the departure which belongs to our transience and without which we would not be our selves. And He, the Lord, makes this consideration a command for us in such a way that we may and must acknowledge its necessity, that we may and must see it in the structure of our creaturely existence to which temporality and therefore dying also belong, that we who of ourselves and without Him could never accept it but could only fear death may and must assent to it. This brings us to the second point which is so inseparably bound up with the first, namely, that the command which summons us to consider that we shall die also summons us never to be afraid of dying. Fear of dying is the perversion which follows from man's reluctance to consider that he will do so. It is the second disobedience Which is the necessary consequence of the first. A right consideration of the fact that we shall die shows us that we have nothing to fear from death. That which in death we shall alwaysfear without God, namely, the fact that we shall cease to exist, that it will be too late, that there is an implied threat of annihilation, we shall now fear no longer. This is not because we might continue to exist in a kind of immortality, nor because we can close our eyes to it and sustain ourselves in a world of arbitrariness and whimsy, nor because we can believe that in spite of our end we are saved and hidden in the permanence of a natural and historical totality. These are all typical expressions of evasion and fear. The real reason why we need not and cannot and must not fear death any longer is that, at the point where we shall cease to be, God the Lord intervenes for us and awaits us and comes to meet us and summons us to secure and recognise and grasp our opportunity. This means, however, that He, the eternal God, lays claim to us as those who pass by and one day will cease to be. He claims us as His own chosen possession. He, the Creator and Lord of time, takes an interest in us in our allotted and limited time. He takes an eternal interest in our temporal existence. He takes an interest in our passing which is not just passing but lasting and enduring and faithful. He takes an inextinguishable interest of mercy and grace in our unique opportunity. What is the meaning for man of dying and ceasing to be if these are not accidentally ordained but divinely predestined? Obviously not that God will forget or even lose him as His possession! Obviously not that from the divine standpoint, too, he will be faced by a "no more" and "too late"! Obviously that God stands surety for him, not as any kind of divine being, but as the God who has loved him from all eternity, who has created him, who has called him as His creature to Himself, who in all things has acted and proved Himself as his God, who has made covenant and alliance with him! It is clear that this God is his hope. His only hope? Yes, his only hope. What other hope could there be? Nor is this a hope which merely flickers into being. As the command Memento

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moriEN30 or Memento DominiEN31! is unambiguously and immutably issued to man, it is already there as the hope of mortal and perishing man, and just as clear and reliable as the Word of God, as the promise given to man in Jesus Christ. "I am the resurrection and the life" Un 1125). God is the hope of manthe God who took such interest in him that He Himself became man in Jesus Christ, that in Jesus Christ He died with us and for us, and that in the resurection of this man Jesus Christ, He then revealed Himself to be the hope of man, to be the manifest hope of all those who look to Jesus Christ and are ready to live by faith in Him. He is the beyond in whom man in his transience, to which departure also belongs, may see his temporal being, not extended (for that would not imply a true beyond), but clothed with eternal life. That is why we are told that "he that heareth my word, and believeth ... hath everlasting life" On. 524). That is also why the command to consider that we must die means that we are forbidden to fear death. In place of this fear we do not put a substitute faith which postulates a false beyond or a false present, or which effaces the distinction between them. We put hope in God as He has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ to be the hope of man. From the standpoint of this hope, the fear of death is shown to be perverted. In this hope fear is defeated. To this hope we are summoned by the command of God. It is evident that from this standpoint the command presupposes the New Testament understanding of time. We might thus reduce its content to the simple summons to accept and adopt this understanding. But this would be its reduction to the formal. It is not the New Testament understanding of time as such which makes matt fearless, but He to whom the New Testament with its understanding of time bears witness. He has utterly destroyed death, i.e., not merely dying, but the nothingness which threatens and lurks behind it, ana brought life and immortality to light (2 Tim. 110). He says: "Fear not!" He takes from the recognition and apprehension of our unique opportunity the atmosphere of anxiety, care and oppression, and all the self-deception which derives from the fear of death and is really a fear of life. He removes the atmosphere in which our opportunity cannot be known or apprehended at all but can only be missed. He makes the recognition and apprehension of it the important, free, joyful, serious and responsible life work which it is as the required work of human obedience. He does this who by His dying and rising again is Himself our hope in face of our dying-God for us where we can no longer in any sense be for ourselves. We may thus summarise and conclude our discussion of this third criterion as follows. The man who grasps his unique opportunity, who occupies his place, may be known by his constant readiness and joyfulness in face of the fact which unambiguously characterises his being in time as a limited being, namely, that he will one day die. EN30 EN3l

Remember that you will die! Remember the Lord

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VOCATION

We now turn to the special intention with which the commanding God calls each man to the freedom of obedience. The fact that He has a special and constantly renewed intention for each means that the freedom of obedience to which He calls man will always be a freedom in limitation. Obedience does not limit freedom. If the freedom of man is the freedom to which the command of God calls him, this freedom is itself perfect obedience. And if the obedience of man is that which the command of God demands of him, this obedience is itself perfect freedom. The freedom of obedience, or obedience in freedom, is limited, however, by the fact that the will, plan and intention of the commanding God are always a special summons to man. God does not want anything and everything from him; He always wants this and that. God chooses as He commands; and the freedom of man to which God calls him, the obedience which He requires of him, consists in the fact that he executes this choice of God and is thus truly free, that he therefore chooses what God has chosen for him and is thus truly obedient. Choice however, first on God's side and then on man's, implies limitation, i.e., limitation to what God has chosen and therefore the abandonment and exclusion of what He has not. As God in His special command imperatively makes known to man His choice of the special and therefore limited thing which He will have of him, God "calls" him. God's choosing, calling and commanding, however, are not arbitrary. They cannot and must not be understood by man as an arbitrary decree. The commanding God is the Creator and Lord of man even before He addresses him in His command. He has set definite limits for him as His creature as He has particularly intended, willed and created him. And the rule of His providence over the existence of man as His creature has been from the very outset a specific, differentiating and therefore again a limited action towards him. Man is already limited, therefore, as the call of God is issued to him in His command. This calling is certainly a new thing in contrast to his existing being in the limits set for him by God as his Creator and Lord. The calling of man by the command of God, in contradistinction to all that he owes to the creation and providence of God, is a challenge issued to him to continue his history in the form of his own decision and act. And what God wants of man in accordance with His summons and command will never be merely a confirmation of the special thing which man has been already on the basis of the creation and providence of God. The limitation in which man is to be free in obedience to the summons and command of God will never be simply identical with the limitation in which he already finds himself. On the contrary, the situation into which man is summoned by the command of God, as opposed to that in which he already finds himself on the basis of the divine creation and providence, may be astonishingly reversed in substance.

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To be sure, there can be no question of complete discontinuity or incompatibility between the old and the new. God will always be true to Himself when in His summons and command He acquaints man with the new choice, the special and definite thing, which is to be actualised in man's own decision and deed. In every case there will be a continuity, a positive relationship, between what God has caused man to be and become as Creator and Lord and what He will now have of him. The special intention with which He now calls him is directed to this being especially determined by God Himself. Therefore, although man cannot simply read off God's command from what he has so far been and become on the basis of the creation and providence of God, yet in that which God wills of him according to His command he will recognise himself as the one he already has been and become by the will of the same God. To the new divine choice which meets him in the command of God he will have to bring in his own choice, not a blind obedience devoid of understanding, but an obedience which sees and understands. That he specifically is meant and called will not be unknowable to him but knowable. He will find the new purpose of God for him sketched at least in the limitation already given him by the same God. He will thus be able at least to orientate himself by what he has already been and become as he is all ears for what is now, to-day, demanded of him. Otherwise, how could his knowing and doing of what God will here and now have him' know and do as this special thing be his own free obedience? How could he be obedient at all? How could there be free decision as distinct from mere occurrence? We have already learned to know the great and basic particularity, limitation and definition in which the commanding God always finds man as His creature, the main lines of individual being by which man must orientate himself when it is a matter of the divine command. These consist in the fact that the life of every man is specifically allotted, being defined by his birth and his death. We ,have attempted to understand the obedience of man as his knowing and grasping the unique opportunity thus presented to him. Not in the fact that he is born once and will die once, nor in the fact that he is a creature whose frontiers are set by these two dates, but in the fact that the commanding God meets him in this unique opportunity at this limited place, and only as he discerns and seizes this opportunity, and resolutely occupies the place assigned, can he be obedient to God's command. But this limitation ascribed to him by his Creator and Lord is only the basic form of the limitation in which the commanding God who is also his Creator and Lord already finds him when He calls him to obedience. The freedom, therefore, to which God calls him, the obedience which He enjoins on him as the recognition and seizure of his unique opportunity, is to some extent only the framework within which he is to be free and obedient according to the command of God. The limitation of his existence as willed and decreed by the omnipotent God is not exhausted by the temporal determination of his life. On the contrary, the temporal determination of his life by his birth and death,

2.

Vocation

by the two events which wholly and utterly constitute and characterise him as this particular man, encloses a plenitude of particularities and therefore of limitations and restrictions which can only be his, and not those of others, in accordance with the special, differentiated and specific form in which God meets him particularly when He calls him and makes known to him His will in His command. The man who has his unique opportunity between his birth and death is in all respects, and according to every aspect of the being which God has appointed for him as his Creator and Lord, this particular man. Since he is this man and not another, the command of God concerns him in this way and not another. And he is now called to discern and fulfil it as this man and not another. The fact that he is always and in every way this man is also in all its details the frontier which God has already set when He makes known to him in His command His new intention, to be perceived and fulfilled by man in the freedom of obedience, i.e., the frontier in which this intention is already indicated. Thus his orientation by all that makes him this man according to the general presupposition of his allotted span is quite indispensable if there is to be freedom of obedience with respect to the command of God. To this particularity, limitation and restriction in which the God who calls and rules always finds man, and by which man must orientate himself to be obedient, we give the name of the calling or vocation of man. And the comprehensive problem of freedom in limitation which we now take up might well be described cum grano salisEN32 as the problem of the "choice of a vocation" to the extent that there is implied for each a necessary orientation towards the knowing and doing of the special will of God, each having to recognise, distinguish and choose his own vocation, his special limitation and restriction, the divinely willed and positive correspondence of his being in which the new thing that God wants of him in His command is indicated. We must remember, however, that this recognition, distinction and choice constitute only the indispensable orientation towards obedience, consisting only in the counterquestion concerning myself as the one to whom the command of God implies, i.e., concerning the will and purpose of God on the basis of which I must confront and obey Him as the man I am. The true and decisive choice of obedience in freedom will not be the choice of my vocation, but the unprejudiced fulfilment of the divine choice which God in accordance with His summoning command has taken for me and which He makes known to me in and with His calling. And the choice of vocation can never be more than either a preparation for or a consequence of the true and decisive choice. In reality it will always be both. But this means that it will be a secondary choice. We must make a clear distinction, therefore, between calling in the sense of vocation and calling as the divine summons. In the latter sense, calling is the imperative revelation and making known of the special, electing, differentiating will of God in His Word and command as given to man, i.e., to this man. It EN32

with a pinch of salt

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is the summons to his special freedom, the claiming of his special obedience. It is the continuing event of the special determination which God has ascribed and makes known to this man here and now in this way, with the command and in the expectation that he will do justice to it in his recognition and execution. Calling in this sense is the new thing which is added to what man already is before God, not merely in the form of a further divine decree in the context of His rule as Creator and Lord, but in the manner of command, freedom and obedience. Hence it will always mean something materially new for man, a broadening, lengthening, alteration or more precise definition of the frontiers within which he already has his being according to the eternal counsel of God, a modification of human existence which reaches out beyond its earlier form. Vocation on the other hand is the essence of this earlier form, the old thing which man already is, which he has behind him, or rather which he brings with him, as the new comes to him. His vocation, too, is wholly from God, but from God in the sense that as his Creator God has constituted him thus, and as his Lord He has thus preserved, accompanied, guided and ruled him. His vocation, too, is his particularity, now claimed for the new particularity of the command of God issued to him. Vocation is "the place of responsibility " (D. Bonhoeffer), the terminus a quoEN33 of all recognition and fulfilment of the command, the status of the man who is called to freedom by the command. It is he himself in his nature and being whom he must necessarily recognise, differentiate and choose, whom he must critically choose in company with God, if he is to choose what God has chosen for him according to His command. Since the point at issue is himself and his obedience, he must also choose himself to choose what God wants. Nor must he choose himself accidentally or arbitrarily. He must choose himself as the one who is called by God, who is intended in the calling of God, who is what he is neither by chance nor caprice, but by the ordination of God. This being of his according to the divine order within whose limits the command of God is already indicated, and by whose limits he must orientate himself, is his vocation. We speak of the vocation of man confronting and corresponding to the divine calling. It is clear that in so doing we give the term a meaning which transcends its customary use in the narrower technical sense. Vocation in the usual sense means a particular position and function of a man in connexion with the process of human work, i.e., his job; and then in the broader sense a whole group of such positions and functions. Now obviously it can also be part of what we understand as human vocation that a man has his "vocation" in this technical sense. For many men this will really be so. There are also men, however, who do not legitimately have a vocation in this technical sense. It is of a piece with the rather feverish modern over-estimation of work and of the process of production that particularly at the climax of the 19th century, and even more so in our EN33

starting paint

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Vocation

own, it should be thought essential to man, or more precisely to the true nature of man, to have a vocation in this sense. On such a view it is forgotten that there are children and the sick and elderly and others for whom vocation in this sense can be only the object either of expectation and preparation or of recollection. It is also forgotten that there are the unemployed, though these are certainly not without a vocation. Finally, it is forgotten that there are innumerable active women who do not have this kind of vocation. The ridiculous result has been that many mothers and housewives have wanted to have their activity as such fully honoured as activity in vocation, as is often unthinkingly conceded even in official usage.

A vocation in the comprehensive sense in which we are now using the term is proper to all men inasmuch as all are destined to be recipients of the divine calling and hearers of the divine command. They do not have a vocation, therefore, only when they take up a "vocation" in the narrower sense. We have to remember that for many men the centre of vocation in the material and comprehensive sense is not to be found at the point of their vocation in the narrower sense. As we have seen, a man does not live to work; he works to live. This is basically true of all men, even of those who have the good fortune to have the centre of their vocation in their profession, but much more so of those whose profession can be only the circumference of their vocation, so that the essential thing to which they are truly called is to be found elsewhere that in its discharge.

That a man's vocation is exhausted in his profession is no more true than that God's calling which comes to him is simply an impulsion to work. He will always live in widely different spheres if he receives the divine calling and is obedient to it. When we call man's vocation the epitome of all that the man to whom the command of God comes already is and has behind him and brings with him, we say already that we cannot even remotely conceive of it in the wholeness corresponding to its reality. In its reality vocation is the whole of the particularity, limitation and restriction in which every man meets the divine call and command, which wholly claims him in the totality of his previous existence, and to which above all wholeness and therefore total differentiation and specification are intrinsically proper as God intends and addresses this man and not another. Precisely because it is a matter of the totality of particularity in which man as he faces God is this man and not another, it is materially impossible to conceive it at a glance. All that we can do is to try to draw a few of the innumerable lines within which the calling of man is actualised and by which he must orientate himself if he is to recognise and fulfil the command of God, ifhe is to become and be a free man within his limitations and at the place of his specific responsibility, if the new thing which God will have of him here and now and in this way is to become an event in his life. The place of his responsibility, i.e., his vocation, is for every man a special one, just as the divine calling is for every man a special calling. This is what makes the task of a complete exposition of human vocation unending and therefore impossible. Nevertheless, from the characteristics of human vocation which are the same in general form for all men we can mention as least the most important, and we can thus lay down a

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Before applying ourselves to this task, we may briefly explain why we have adopted the present usage (cf. on this point Max Weber, "Die prot. Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus," Ges. Aufs. z. Rel.-Soziologie Vol. I, 1922,63-83; Karl Holl, "Die Geschichte des Wortes Beruf," Ges. Aufs. z. Kgsch. Vol. III, 1928, 189 f.; K. L. Schmidt, Art. KaAEw, KAiJOIS, KArrros, Kittel Vol. III, 492 f.; A. de Quervain, Die Heiligung, 1942,64 f. Our premise is that the word vocation is not known to the New Testament in its present meaning, i.e., in the narrower technical sense in which it denotes the definite area of man's work. In the New Testament KAiJOLS EN34 alwaysmeans quite unambiguously the divine calling, i.e., the act of the call of God issued inJesus Christ by which a man is transplanted into his new state as a Christian, is made a participant in the promise (Eph. 118,44) bound up with this new state, and assumes the duty (Eph. 41; 2 Pet. 110) corresponding to this state. This calling is holy (2 Tim. 19). It is heavenly (Heb. 31). It comes, therefore, from above (Phil. 314). It follows ou KaTo' To' Epya ~/LWV aAAo' KaTo' l8tav TTpO(}EOLVKat XaPLV, T~V 8o(}ELoav ~/LLV EV XPLOT0 'ITJOOV TTPOXPOVWV alwvtwv, 4>aVEpw(}ELoav 8E VVVEN35 (2 Tim. 19). Its sovereignty in face of all human greatness is reflected in the fact that at Corinth only a few wise and mighty and noble and a majority of foolish, weak, lowlyand despised persons have received it (1 Cor. 126f.). Hence its sovereignty in face of all differences in human origin and social position consists in the fact that we may and must become obedient to it whether we are circumcised or uncircumcised, slave or free, there being also no question of abandoning these human conditions on its account (1 Cor. 718f.). The divine calling comes from above into all these and other human spheres, cutting diagonally across them. Thus the New Testament KAiJOLS EN36. has nothing to do with the divine confirmation of these spheres as such, nor with the direction to enter such a sphere, or more particularly to enter a special sphere of work. This is the case even in 1 Cor. 720: EKaOTos EV Tn KA~OEL, fJ EKA~(}TJ, EV TaVTTJ /LEVETW EN37 To be sure, Luther here translated KAiJOLS EN38 "vocation" (Beruj), and took it to mean that each must keep to the divinely allotted sphere of work, recognising in it his vocation, and being obedient to God in it, with no thoughts of becoming a monk the better to serve God in a Christian activity outside the secular sphere. This is how the word Beruf is understood in the Augsburg Confession (Art. 16 and 27), and it is in this sense that, with a religious pathos corresponding to its origin, it has passed over into modern thinking and usage. Unfortunately Karl Holl (op. cit., p. 219) is probably quite right when he takes it that Luther's concern and intention was to take the original claim of monasticism, namely, to know God's presence in every momen t of life, and to renew it in terms of a realisation of the true call of God within the world and its work, so that the task of ethics is to understand in concert "the inner call which is perceived in the Gospel "-Holl himself lays stress on the "inner call" rather than "in the Gospel"-and "the voice which crowds in upon us from things themselves and their necessity." The words of Bismarck: "To perceive the footprints of God marching through history, and then to step forward and accept the burden, are genuinely Lutheran." Whether and how far this is so it is for more intensive Luther research to decide. But it is certainly unfortunate that Holl tried to help Luther (op. cit., p. 190) by

EN37

calling not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began calling Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called

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demonstrating that in 1 Cor. 720 Paul really had in view what Luther found there, either venturing "to unite with a daring thought a word coinage just as daring, namely, that the calling of a Christian includes the position in life in which he finds himself as ordered by God," or more likely, as Holl thinks, adopting "an existing but infrequent and even colloquial usage," namely, that KA.ijaL~ EN39 is "that from which each has his name and therefore his state or vocation in the present sense." Surely he ought not to have advanced this view in face of the overwhelming use of the term in the rest of the New Testament, even if it had been less clear than it is from the context that what Holl seeks to attribute to Paul cannot have been in his mind in the very least. Indeed, Holl himself shows expressly in his essay that in the Early Church and right up to the end of the Middle Ages no one ever dreamed of taking the verse in this sense. Prior to the Reformation, apart from a few variant interpretations by German Mystics in the late Middle Ages, KA.ijaL~EN40, vocatio, call, or vocation, was taken in the basic New Testament sense of the special divine calling of man to become a Christian. The only trouble was that this calling was no longer that of the New Testament, i.e., his calling to that which makes every man a Christian, but rather-and it is here that we have the great break of monasticism from the universal Christianity orientated to the average man-the special calling of man, namely, of the dissatisfied church-goer, to full and strict obedience to the command of Christ, i.e., to the observance of the "evangelical counsels." To have practical knowledge of true Christianity thus became a matter of special technique, discipline and craft exercised and conceived by a Christian aristocracy on the basis of its reading of the New Testament as a nova lexEN41. And KA.ijaL~ EN42, vocation, meant the admission and transition of the homo religiosusEN43 to this true and special Christianity, to the true militia ChristiEN44. What happened to a man when he donned the monastic habit was called a second and new baptism. To be precise, was it not his only real baptism on this view?Here at least he now received full remission of his sins. And vocatiowas now understood only as this vocatioEN45. Only as he was obedient to it was there in concreto the putting on of Christ of Gal. 327• Only with this obedience did he concretely bring the complete sacrifice of his life which is due to God and which dfetinguishes the monk even from the crusader, but especially from the men of other professions who give themselves to secular work. According to the view prevalent at the height of the Middle Ages, the latter only existed to free for the work of their profession those who were totally and exclusively occupied in rendering true obedience for the salvation of each and all. There could be no question of calling for Christians in other professions. This narrowing of the sphere of Christian KA.ijaL~ EN46, this dismissal of most Christians from its scope, was the flagrant evil and perversion of pre-Reformation Christianity which cried urgently for redress. How could the Church be "one body and one spirit" calling upon the one Lord and living by the one faith on the basis of the one baptism, how could it be the Church of the one God and Father of all (Eph. 44f.), if it was not prepared to take seriously the I-tLa EA.7TL~ Tij~ KA.~aEW~ Vl-twv EN47 upon which it was founded? What were and are all external schisms compared with this schism which the Church allowed, willed, blessed and finally achieved within itself by making and teaching and institutionalising the distinction

EN39 EN40 EN41 EN42 EN43 EN44 EN45 EN46 EN47

calling calling new lawof Christ calling religious person service of Christ calling calling one hope of your calling

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~ 56. Freedom in Limitation between first-class Christians who have a KAiJOIS EN48 and second-class Christians who have not? Yet the damage could not be made good by a devaluation of the concept of Christian KAiJOLS EN49 such as took place at the Reformation. It was an antithetical and unthinking and ultimately merciless concession to the supposed needs of the ordinary man when the aristocracy was removed and overthrown and KAiJ OLSEN50 was allowed to be issued again to all Christians as such. But its character at KAiJOLS EN51 from above, the sovereignty with which according to the New Testament it comes into all human spheres and cuts right across them, was obscured and darkened past recognition when it was understood as the direction of every man, made by the Gospel and to be accepted in faith, into the specific sphere of work to which he was obligated by a law firmly established from a very different quarter, and when this sphere of work was declared to be his God-given vocation; or conversely, when his vocation, profession or office, in the form which it took in the framework of existing human society as ordered by God, was equated with his divine calling, and therefore his industrious and skilful work in this vocation with the required obedience to his calling. The actual concern as Holl has described it was to understand in their consonance "the inner call which is perceived in the Gospel and the voice which crowds in upon us from things themselves and their necessity." But there is no KAiJOLS EN52 in this questionable approximation of Holl to an inner call and to things and their necessity. When we see the vocation of a man as his destiny already disclosed and imposed as the will and law of God, so that he needs only an inner call to recognise and apprehend it, to what purpose is the calling of God, Christ or the Gospel? What more can this be than his perhaps not absolutely necessary self-direction to vocation? Calling, then, shrinks necessarily to what Holl describes as awareness of "God's presence in every moment of life." What can this mean in practice, however, if there is opposed to it, itself as a divine imperative and to be understood in concert with it, a law of historical events and relationships? The co-ordination of calling with a voice of things themselves and their necessity, and therefore with a vocation which for its part is also to be regarded as imperative; the attempt to listen to a Word of God on the right hand and another word on the left, has alwayshad the unfortunate result, as in Protestantism, that vocation has begun to take and has actually taken precedence of calling, so that the Word of God on the right hand has increasingly and finally to yield before that on the left, the Gospel before the Law.And what then remains? The Law of God, a Word of God on the left hand? No, but "the voice of things themselves and their necessity" interpreted by the voice of an inner call; a law of man's understanding of self and time; a conservative or liberal and eventually even national or social ideal of culture and society. And what man must do within this framework and for its fulfilment is supposed to be his vocation, or, to give the matter a Christian air, his divine calling. Protestantism successfully expelled monasticism by recalling the fact that KAiJOLS EN53 is the presupposition of all Christian existence. But it lost sight of the divine grandeur and purity of this KAiJOLS EN54, which were alwaysin some sense retained even by monasticism. There was thus fulfilled the ancient saying: Incidit in Skyllam, qui vult vitare Charybdin EN55. Its Scyllawas the concealed but later more blatant secularism of its concept of calling-a secularism which was unavoidable from the very outset. EN48 EN49 EN50 EN5l EN52 EN53 EN54 EN55

calling calling calling calling calling calling calling Whoever wishes to avoid Charybdis

meets Scylla

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Having said this, however, we must put in a good word for the thesis of Holl and therefore indirectly for Luther and the Protestant concept of vocation. Holl's thesis is not to be totally rejected. If his exposition of 1 Cor. 720 is generally unacceptable, there is in it a notable statement which demands consideration. He tells us that in this verse "a revolutionary meaning of the word KAijaLS EN56 is brought home to Christians." If we may take this expression seriously, it is correct not merely in relation to this verse but to the whole meaning and understanding of KAijaLS, KaAELvEN57, etc. in the New Testament. KAijaLsEN58 is the call of God. It comes from heaven and therefore from above. There can be no changing this. It is not to be co-ordinated with a human vocation and finally circuitously identified with the inner call. It is not the underlining or repeating of something old which men have already perceived and affirmed. It is alwaysa new thing which God wants of man. But it is not a hermetically sealed ball suspended above him and neither touching nor touchable by him. It concerns him. It is for him. It simply cannot be strange to him. It falls from above into all his spheres and cuts diagonally across them, as we have said in exposition of Cor. 126f. and 718f .• It stands in a relation to them: a relation which comes from God; which is not therefore accidental or arbitrary or merely negative; a relation to the man existing in them. We must not forget what K. L. Schmidt has correctly emphasised (in sharp opposition to Holl), namely, that KAijaLsEN59 is the calling of God issued inJesus Christ. ButJesus Christ as true Son of God is true man, who in all things human is certainly quite different from all other men, but to whom nothing really human can be alien. And the object of His work and recipient of His Word is man as he is and not as he is not. IfJesus Christ is the One who calls, and if His call goes forth to man as he is, then what the man called by Him is as such cannot be a matter of indifference or unconcern to the One who calls. Christ finds man precisely as the man he is; and He is found by the man who is obedient to His call. It is true enough that calling is revolutionary. It shakes what is worldly, or better what is human, not as a uniform and undifferentiated mass, but in its differentiation and multiplicity, just as calling itself is not uniform, but differentiated and multiple in correspondence with the differentiation of men. The servants in the parable in Mt. 2514f. receive from the one Lord their different talents, the one five, the other two and the third only one. The workers in the vineyard in Mt. 20lf. are called again by the one Lord, some early in the morning, others in the third hour, others in the sixth, others in the ninth and the last only at the eleventh hour. Therefore, while the Spirit of the Lord, the God who works all in all, is one and the same, there are differences in the distribution of the gifts of grace, ministries and mighty works (1 Cor. 124f.), TTPOS TO aVfL4>EpovEN60, in virtue of the one 4>aVEpwaLS TOV TTVEUfLaTosEN61 (v. 7), each being allotted such various things as a word of knowledge, a word of wisdm, faith, healing, power against (?) demonic (?) forces, prophecy, discernment of spirits, speaking in tongues and their interpretation (v. 8 f.). Throughout-and this is the unmistakeable emphasis in 1 Cor. 12-Paul underlines the fact that "all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit" (v. 12 f.), and later that all this characterises Christians as members of one body, so that none exalts himself above the others but each can only seek to serve the others. According to v. 11, however, it is one and same Spirit who distributes to each what is proper (Tel rSLa) according to His own will. And the conclusion of the chapter (v. 28 f.) emphasises again, with self-evident delimitation, that God has placed in the one EKKA1]ata EN62, first EN56 EN57 EN58 EN59 EN60 EN61 EN62

calling calling, to call calling calling for the common good manifestation of the spirit church

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~ 56. Freedom in Limitation

[604]

apostles, then prophets, then teachers, then workers of miracles, then those with gifts of healing, helpers, leaders, those endowed with tongues. "Are all apostles? prophets? teachers? etc." No, is obviously, the unspoken answer. They are not everything they might seem to be as KAYJTO{EN63. Since the one KAiJalS EN64 is differentiated and variously issued, therefore every KAYJT6~ EN65 has his KAiJaL~ EN66 and his corresponding xapLaj.La EN67 and SLaKov{a EN68. A similar comprehension and differentiation is to be found in Rom. 123f., except that here the emphasis falls unmistakeably on the differentiation or the special responsibility of each individual resulting from it. The same emphasis is plain in 1 Pet. 410: "As each man (EKaaTo~) hath received the gift, i.e., the one gift of grace, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." Within the framework of the same twofold view Paul speaks in 1 Cor. 35f. of the relation between his own special commission and that of Apollos, and in 1 Cor. 7, with reference to the question whether or not to marry, he describes the decision as a matter of the rSLOV xap{aj.La EN69 received from God (v. 7), or of the divine KAiJaL~ EN70 (v. 17). Similarly, according to 1 Cor. 313f., 2 Cor. 510, Rom. 26 and 1 Pet. 117, in the final judgment of God or Christ the works of each will be disclosed and their just judgment received. That Christians are called by God "in peace" (1 Cor. 715; cf. Col. 315) has as its necessary corollary the fact that they are called "to freedom" (Gal. 5 1, 13). In peace they are together as one or as one body; in freedom they are not under a law, as the Galatian errorists would have it, but in the same Christ in whom they are one or one body they are EKaaToL EN71, and as such they are bound to serve one another in love. It is in this indispensable relation to the EKaaToL EN72 that the concept of KAiJaL~ EN73 is revolutionary, shaking what is worldly or human. Men are EKaaToL EN74 before they become KAYJTO{EN75, and they remain EKaaToL EN76 even when they are KAYJTO{EN77. If their KAiJaL~ EN78 is their allotted disclosure of one and the same truth beside which there is no other, the truth is not a general truth, but a special truth for each; and on its ethical side it is the imperative revelation of the will of God which man is to recognise and do and from which there is no dispensation. It is not, therefore, the proclamation of a general principle or programme, but for each it is the special order intended for him. It is not a shot in the dark, but a well-aimed shot ad hominemEN79, and therefore unquestionably a shot in medias res humanasEN80, into the whole subjectively and objectively, internally and externally conditioned being and nature of man in all its dimensions and in accordance with the particularity in which it is the nature and being of this specific man. EN63 EN64 EN65 EN66 EN67 EN68 EN69 EN70 EN71 EN72 EN73 EN74 EN75 EN76 EN77 EN78 EN79 EN80

called calling called calling gift ministry proper gift calling individuals individuals calling individuals person who has individuals person who has calling at the individual into the middle

been called been called person of human affairs

2. Vocation

This is the particula veriEN81 in the conception of Holl. Unfortunately he has corrupted it at the very outset by putting the world and things and their necessity in place of man, the EKaoTo~ EN82, and by ascribing to their "voice" a divinity of its own as opposed to the divine KA~OIS EN83. The New Testament EKaoTo~ EN84 as KATJT6~ EN85 cannot ascribe divinity to any created voice, whether to that which may allow itself to talk from experiences and relations, nor to the inner call-and Holl would regard this as the call of the Gospel-with which he responds to this message and makes it his own, nor even to the consonance of both in his heart and conscience. In fact he is no more than the one who is called, the addressee and recipient of the divine KA~Ot~ EN86. But as such he is the real man affected by it. In no sense is he any less. What we see him do as KATJT6~EN87, called to his hour in the vineyard, entrusted with the administration of his talents, equipped with his charisma, he certainly does not do in obedience to the voice of things, to his inner call, or to the consonance of the two. Even though it may be only the simplest work of agape among Christians, he does it in response to the new command and in the new power of God, the Lord, the Spirit. He does it, therefore, as a new work which completely transcends his former humanity: yet not as the work of an angel; but, even though he be the apostle Paul himself, as his own work and therefore the work of a man, of this man, who has his former humanity behind him and brings it with him, who precisely as he is, is elected and called to be DOVA6~ 'ITJoov XptOTOV EN88 and set in service as such, in whose new name, Paul, there is still recognisable and intact the old name, Saul, who even though he is EV XptOT