Natural Theology and Its Dangers: What Barmen Rejected

Natural theology is the attempt to know God through creation, reason, or human experience apart from Scripture and special revelation. In normal times, debates about natural theology seem abstract - a matter for academic theologians to argue about in lecture halls. In 1934 Germany, the stakes turned out to be life and death.

The German Christian Version of Natural Theology

The German Christians argued that God spoke not only through the Bible but also through the 'orders of creation' - race, nation, and family as divinely established structures that carried their own theological authority. God could be read in the German Volk, in the movement of history, in Adolf Hitler's rise to power. These were 'revelations' that Christians were obligated to receive alongside Scripture.

The result was predictable: wherever Scripture's demands conflicted with Nazi ideology, Nazi ideology won. The 'other word' of German history trumped the Word of the cross. The church that opened itself to natural revelation from culture had no principled basis to resist when that culture demanded something incompatible with the Gospel.

Barth's Nein

Karl Barth had already delivered his famous 'Nein!' (No!) to Emil Brunner in 1934, in response to Brunner's more moderate defense of a limited natural theology. Barth argued with characteristic forcefulness: there is no 'point of contact' in human nature for divine revelation. God creates the point of contact in the act of revelation itself. Any theology that builds on the human side of the relationship - whether on reason, conscience, or national history - is theologically compromised and practically dangerous.

The Permanent Relevance of Barmen's Rejection

The lesson extends beyond 1934. Every generation faces pressure to add a 'second word' alongside Scripture - a cultural consensus, a political movement, a therapeutic framework, a national identity. Barmen's first thesis insists that the church has only one Lord and therefore only one authoritative Word. This does not mean that culture, reason, or experience are useless. It means they cannot be sovereign. They serve the Word; they do not supplement it.