Exploring a Christian conception of economic life from within Karl Barth's doctrine of creation

Abstract

This thesis uses Barth’s doctrine of creation in Church Dogmatics III as a theological resource to explore a Christian conception of economic life. It gives particular emphasis to Barth’s pivotal insight that the covenant is the inner basis and reason for creation, the creation is the external basis and possibility for the enactment of the covenant, and that both covenant and creation exist in an irreversible order and in an unbreakable unity. The order and unity of covenant and creation is used to demonstrate that Barth’s claim that “Dogmatics itself is ethics; and ethics is also dogmatics” (CD 1/II, 793) is a genuinely workable claim. On this basis Christian ethics may be understood as holding covenant and creation in proper order and unity and in so doing provides us with a standard by which we may understand the command of God as it orientates us toward God, toward others, and toward our actions in the created environment as economic agents. Thus a Christian conception of economic life that serves its proper function in the economy of God will be recognisable in that it will (1) uphold the unity of covenant and creation and so avoid a form of life in which these exist independent of each other. Thus it will neither conceive of Christian service as constituting the totality of a spiritualistic vision concerned only with the saving of souls that has no concern for the bodies of whose souls they are; nor will it conceive of economic agency as constituting the totality of a materialistic vision concerned only with the betterment of bodies that has no concern for the souls of whose bodies they are. It will also (2) uphold the order of covenant and creation and thus put love of God and service to neighbour at the ruling centre and the work of economic agency at the serving circumference. Thus it will reject a form of life in which Christian faith becomes a tool serving economic advantage. It will not annex the glory of God to sanctify our material aspirations; rather it will seek to annex our functioning as economic agents in service of the glory of God. We invite catastrophe if we attempt to make economic activity lie at the ruling centre of our lives, or treat economic activity as the sole purpose of our existence.