opposition to the problematic features of orthodoxy. He then hopes
that his points regarding acknowledgement may provide some posi-
tive common ground in that they might all agree in acknowledging
Jesus Christ as the basis of the act of faith. He adds, however, that
what he will say about‘knowing’and‘confessing’separates him from
Bultmann and Herrmann.^235
Barth’s defence of the primacy ofAnerkennenis clearly a feature
that unites him with the post-Enlightenment German Protestantism.
From Luther to Barth and Bultmann we can see a distinctive Prot-
estant current that emphasizes the idea of appropriation and con-
siders recognition to be thefirst human act of faith, a condition of
possibility. While some epistemic content is included in this act, a
more comprehensive knowing and doctrinal content only emerges
afterwards. Since thefirst act of acknowledgement has the person of
Jesus Christ as its immediate object, the act thus concerns interper-
sonal recognition rather than any acknowledgement of content.
Barth goes on to say that knowing, the second act of faith,‘pro-
ceeds from the acknowledgement’and, as a second act, it is‘already
included in thefirst’. For Barth, this somewhat paradoxical view
means that acknowledgement is not blind obedience but has an
‘understanding’.^236 Although this remark may not settle all philo-
sophical problems, Barth’s view is again close to Bultmann’s idea that
the biblical concept of knowing is primarily acknowledgement but
also has some epistemic content.
Barth highlights the role of the church and the Bible in this context.
While the basic acknowledgement is not‘the subservient acceptance
of any reports or propositions’, neither is it an individualistic decision
but an act that is determined by its object, Jesus Christ, who is
available through the Bible and proclaimed by the community, the
church. Faith is in this way an‘obedient acceptance’. At the same
time, the believer can‘freely acknowledge’Christ, no force being
used.^237 In this manner, Barth aims to preserve the personal relation-
ship while not speaking of it in the modernist terms of individual
consciousness.
Like Bultmann, Barth takes over the early Christian idea ofagnitio
veritatis/Christiand links it with the Reformation doctrine of appro-
priation. This view involves some criticism of Protestant orthodoxy.
(^235) KDIV/1, 850–1; E, 761. (^236) KDIV/1, 851; E, 761.
(^237) KDIV/1, 848–50; E, 759–61.
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