participation in and further expansion of the war. In a letter to Herrmann, Barth
reveals his shaken conviction that “we learned to acknowledge ‘experience’ as the
constitutive principle of knowing and doing in the domain of religion.” Further, he
objects to the “the fact that German Christians ‘experience’ their war as a holy war is
supposed to bring us to silence.”^47 This forced Barth to recognize the unstable and
ambiguous nature of experience. McCormack accurately summarizes his dilemma,
“[i]f religious experience could give rise to such divergent and even contradictory
conclusions, perhaps it could no longer be relied upon to provide an adequate ground
and starting-point for theology.”^48 Additionally, this explains Barth’s strong aversion
to natural theology due to its subjective origin in humanity and further connection
with Nazi Germany.^49
Katherine Sonderegger provides a nuanced summary of Barth’s revised
understanding of the nature and role of experience, “Barth does not deny human
experience, its inwardness, piety, and self-certainty, but rather unsettles it: creaturely
reality can reflect but cannot ground Christian knowledge of God. To begin with
human experience of God, with faith, is to enter an airless room. We leave with what
we took in – our own ideas, passions, and introspections.”^50 These words are best
understood in relation to Barth’s understanding of the objective and subjective
dynamics of experiencing the Word of God.^51 Schleiermacher and others had made
(^47) McCormack, Barth’s Dialectical Theology (^) , 113, cf. 111-7 for the broader details on
the war’s effect upon Barth’s thinking. See also Barth, “Concluding Unscientific
Postscript on Schleiermacher,” 263 48 - 4.
49 McCormack, Barth’s Dialectical Theology, 113.^
50 John Webster, Cambridge Companion to Barth, 3^2 - 3, 229-32, 302.^
Sonderegger, “Barth and Feminism,” 262. cf. McCormack, Barth’s Dialectical
Theology 51 , 157n129.
How to Read Barth Hunsinger asserts that objectivism is one of the six major motifs for reading Barth. , 35-39.