I am reading Paul Molnar’s book Faith, Freedom and the Spirit: The Economic Trinity in Barth, Torrance, and Contemporary Theology, for a review I’m writing for the journal 
Cultural Encounters. I’m dreadfully behind on not only finishing the book, but also in writing the review. Yet, I felt I must stop for a moment to write a quick post on a point that Molnar is making in regard to Barth’s rejection of phenomenological theology, and how that plays into his style of anti-natural-theology thinking.
Barth’s context, obviously, was in the German/Swiss world where ‘Liberal theology’ had become entrenched; indeed, his own training was under Hermann, a leading liberal theologian of the day. Immanuel Kant’s thought was very influential, and as such the role of the phenomenal had pride of place for theological developments during Barth’s day. Once Barth made his turn to the ‘strange new world of the Bible’ he developed his theology in such a way that it countered his own antecedents given to him in the voices of Kant, Schleiermacher, Hegel, et al. In the following quote Molnar is discussing how and why Barth rejected phenomenological theology. I found it insightful so I thought I’d share it with you, the reader.
Let us begin first by contrasting Barth’s statement noted above that faith is not a phenomenon that is generally known and can be explained to everyone. Why does he say this? The answer is simple. What is known in faith is that Jesus Christ who is the divine-human Mediator between us and the Father has reconciled us to God and now meets us as the risen Lord enabling our belief in him and in his actions of justification and sanctification for us; he is the one in whom our conversion to God has taken place and the one in whom we can live freely as those who are now God’s friends and not God’s enemies. Since Jesus’ divinity and humanity are not to be confused and since Barth consistently held that Jesus is not the revealer in his humanity as such, Barth concluded that no study of anthropology, of Jesus’ humanity or of the church’s visible structure could possibly disclose the true nature of Jesus as the revealer, the church as his earthly-historical form or the true meaning of faith. The truth of these historical realities can be known in their depth of meaning only by means of a miraculous action of the Holy Spirit enabling us to hear the Word of God active as the man Jesus reconciling us to God from both the divine and the human side. Simply put, no phenomenological analysis of human action, human belief or of any historical actions of church members—no analysis of general anthropology—can yield the truth recognized and acknowledged in faith, namely, that Jesus Christ is God’s Word acting for our benefit as the incarnate, crucified, risen, ascended and coming Lord. Faith is bound to its particular object who gives us a knowledge that simply cannot be gleaned from elsewhere or outside faith itself, because what we come to know in faith is something that transcends the world of experience that can be analyzed sociologically, psychologically, historically and therefore phenomenologically. That is why Barth rejected any notion that knowledge of revelation could be had via any a priori sort of reasoning. That is also why, as we shall shortly see, he opposed apologetic attempts to prepare for the gospel through any such analysis; such preparation is rendered unnecessary and indeed impossible by the fact that Jesus himself is the truth of God and cannot be bypassed in an attempt to know what God is doing now within history.[1]
The phenomenal can only be made known from the noumenal; to use Kant’s categories. But these categories don’t ultimately cut it for Barth, as Molnar underscores. The whole act of God in Christ is a miraculous event of the sort for which there is no analogy or phenomena in history. For Barth the event of creation and recreation in Christ are of such a primal sort that they are only accessible in and through contact with God; or, only God can reveal God. And when I say accessible, I mean that nature/creation itself has no meaning apart from its inner meaning given to it in the covenant life of God for us.
It is at this very point that Barth departs so radically from the tradition; on a doctrine of creation/revelation. He is driven to these lengths because he is attempting make Christ the centrum of all reality. Some would say that Barth hits the breaking point, while others would say he breaks the sound barrier.
[1] Paul D. Molnar, Faith, Freedom and the Spirit: The Economic Trinity in Barth, Torrance, and Contemporary Theology (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2015), 51-2.
Athanasian Reformed 