The Future of the Complete Edition of Karl
Barth’s Works (Karl Barth-Gesamtausgabe) – Achievements, Tasks,
Expectations
by Hans-Anton Drewes
The decision from summer 1970 to publish a complete edition of Karl
Barth’s works, including his previously published and unpublished
writings, led one year later to the appointment of a full-time chief
editor, who should guarantee a consistently high standard of the
editorial work and, as far as it seemed adequate and possible, a uniform
shape of the edition. The editor-in-chief should also coordinate, in
collaboration with numerous editors, the planning and realization of the
work on individual volumes. Before that, however, he had to make
possible the editorial work itself: by functioning first, time and
again, as an archivist who repeatedly and with increasing accuracy had
to look at, order, open up, and make accessible the superabundance of
Karl Barth’s posthumous works that exist in the form of manuscripts,
letters, books, brochures, and journals. This was the presupposition
that made it possible to answer or at first and often enough to express
precisely the questions that were posed by the editorial work on Karl
Barth’s oeuvre and by its systematic-theological and historical
investigation. Thus, the task of the complete edition led directly to
the Karl-Barth-Archive, and today both are unmistakably shaped by
Hinrich Stoevesandt who worked with impressive competence and passion as
the head of the archive and the edition from 1971 to 1997.
Correspondingly, the future of the complete edition also depends on
the continuation of the archive’s work in preserving and opening up the
posthumous works. And this in turn depends on the support for the Karl-Barth-Foundation,
the holder of the archive – here we are thankful, first of all, for the
support from the Swiss National Foundation, which hopefully will
continue to pay for the only full-time position, the archivist, in the
future. But the coming years will pose new challenges, and the Karl-Barth-Foundation
needs further help from old and new friends. Here we are thankful for
the friendly co-operation from the Center for Barth Studies at Princeton
(USA), whose efforts enable us to make important steps forward. Besides
the precautions for securing and preserving the holdings, through the
appropriate treatment of paper that is not acid-free as well as through
the microfilming and computerization of manuscripts and letters
threatened by the fading of their ink or carbon, further extensive work
needs to be done on the ordering, cataloguing, and indexing of the
holdings – all for the purpose of keeping or making accessible the
heritage of Karl Barth to the reading and researching public.
This is realized mainly through the complete edition of Karl Barth’s
works, which shall make available in the attainable completeness Barth’s
texts in their critically secured original wording and with accompanying
information and material. The latter renders possible a better
understanding of the pertinent connections and of the biographical and
historical background. But the production of editions like this not only
presupposes a continuation of the archival work along the indicated
lines. The progress of the complete edition is equally unthinkable
without the co-operation of experts who put their abilities and energies
into the service of this team-effort. In this regard, it will also be
important that this work, which is done primarily by theologians in the
ministry and the academy, is acknowledged and supported by institutions
that are affected by it.
Given these presuppositions, it should be possible to proceed with
the Karl Barth-Gesamtausgabe until the next Barth-anniversaries (anyone
who knows about the difficulties and coincidences during such an
undertaking will understand the somewhat vague mode of expression here),
according to the following plan that above all intends the completion of
units which are already emerging.
Section I (Sermons) will continue with the publication of three
especially important volumes, including the sermons from the
years 1918, 1919, and 1920/21. Like the sermons from 1916 and 1917, we
find in them an extraordinarily exciting authentic commentary on Barth’s
way throughout the phases of liberal theology and religious socialism to
the first edition of the Commentary on Romans and then from the first to
the second edition. Thus, in the foreseeable future all of Barth’s
sermons from 1913 until the time of his death will be accessible. And
there exist good conditions for the addition of the residual 148 sermons
between 1907 and 1912, insofar as the transcription of the manuscripts
has at least already begun.
In Section II (Academic Works) the particularly demanding work on the
edition of the second Commentary on Romans from
1922 continues. When it appears, the two interpretations that mark an
epoch in the history of theology and no less in the development of
hermeneutics will be available in a critical format. Furthermore, the
third volume of the "Instruction in the Christian Religion" can be
expected in this section, which will complete Barth’s Göttingen
Dogmatics, on which particularly intense research has been done in the
USA. Special attention will be given to its final section, the
eschatology from the winter term 1925/26, when Barth was already in
Münster, since it is the only worked out treatise of Barth about this
topic.
The edition of the "Material related to the Church Dogmatics,
1943/44," which has been planned for a long time, belongs into the same
context of systematic theology: pieces about the doctrine of creation
and anthropology, which Barth worked out completely and presented in a
lecture course but did not include in the printed version of the Church
Dogmatics.
As far as Barth’s exegetical lecture courses are concerned, only the
interpretation of the Gospel of John (chapters 1-8) so far has appeared
in the Gesamtausgabe. Intense work is being done on the publication of
his other lectures on New Testament books, in two or three volumes:
these are the lectures on 1 Corinthians and Philippians and the lecture
on Romans at the adult college in Basle, which Barth himself published
but which will be accompanied by additional material in the new
editions; and especially the unpublished interpretations of Ephesians,
Colossians, James, 1 Peter, and the Sermon on the Mount. They each exist
in different versions (in the case of Ephesians they go back to the
dictations about a short explanation that Barth presented to a
congregation group in Safenwil). The comparison of the different stages
will be very revealing for the understanding of Barth’s theological
development. Finally, it might be of great importance that the "whistle"
to do "exegesis, exegesis, and once again exegesis," which Barth tried
to impress on his students’ mind when he left Bonn, can be heard in this
direct form – and his entire theological oeuvre shall be heard and
evaluated as such a whistle.
After a long time, the lecture course on Zwingli, from the winter
term 1922/23, will be published in the section Academic Works, and
preparations have begun to publish also the lectures on the Heidelberg
Catechism, with which Barth began his academic career in the winter term
1921/22. When this task, which is difficult already during its first
stage, that is, the deciphering of the manuscript, is solved, the
posthumous edition of Barth’s previously unpublished lectures will be
complete, except for the two Münster lecture courses about the history
of Protestant Theology in the 19th century, the third
version of which, given in Bonn and greatly revised, Barth himself had
published. Section II, however, will not be yet complete, since it shall
also include new, critical editions of academic works that already were
published during Barth’s time, as it happened already, for example, with
the "Christliche Dogmatik im Entwurf." But it might be agreed that the
edition of previously unpublished texts certainly has a priority.
In Section III (Individual Lectures and Brief Works), a volume with
texts from 1914 until 1921 shall appear shortly and close an often and
rightly deplored gap. The editorial work on the material from 1930 to
1935 has already far advanced and the work on the material from the
subsequent years 1935-1938 has begun, so that altogether three volumes
can be expected in this section during the next years. If it is at all
possible, further volumes that include the texts until 1945 shall follow
not too long afterwards.
In Section IV (Conversations), a volume is almost finished that
includes the particularly productive year 1963, with many presentations
and interpretations about his life and work by Barth himself, and
completes the series of conversations between 1959 and 1968. The
collection of material continues for another volume with interviews and
discussions during the preceding years.
In Section V (Letters) four weighty volumes have been published in
the last two years: the correspondence between Karl Barth and Emil
Brunner, covering 50 years, the letters between Barth and Thurneysen
from the years 1930-1935 that were so decisive theologically and
historically as well as for Karl Barth’s personal life, and two editions
of Open Letters, 1909-1935 and 1935-1942. Another correspondence,
between Karl Barth and Willem Adolf Visser t’Hooft (1930-1968), is in
the making.
On the whole, the material in these volumes is extensive but offers
only a small part of Barth’s preserved correspondence. Barth’s letters
make for a particularly fascinating reading, since they give testimony
to a disappearing and perhaps already extinct culture of letter writing.
But above all, Barth’s exchange with the most diverse partners offers a
lively and educating insight into his occupation with a wide range of
topics and thus into the manifold contexts of thinking and experience,
in which Barth lived and worked. Yet, the edition of and commentary on
the letters present such high demands on the
knowledge, precision, and intuition of the editors that on the basis of
a realistic estimate of the tasks and the available resources a fast
excavation of these treasures for research purposes and for the wider
public cannot be expected, as desirable as it might be. Thus, one has to
consider if prior to the publication of further volumes of Karl Barth’s
general correspondence, which so far exists only for the years
1961-1968, should be preceded by the development and publication of
Regesten. This procedure has been well-tested in other cases, as with
the letters of Thomas Mann and Melanchthon, to
name two very different examples. It not only helps to prepare the
subsequent full editions more coherently but also allows to give
interested persons in a foreseeable space of time an overview over the
correspondence and the topics on which it touches.
Section VI (From Karl Barth’s Life) shall begin with a volume that
present Barth’s conflicts with the Swiss censorship during World War II
on the basis of official documents. Together with the Open Letters from
the same time, the collection will shed an admonishing and consoling
light on threats and preservation in difficult, dangerous times.
In the beginning, I talked about the conditions on which the
continuing work of the Archive and thus the publication of further
volumes in the Gesamtausgabe, under the appropriate scientific
standards, depends. Another condition is the willingness of editors to
undergo this difficult task, together with an ability to fulfill it, and
the competent and efficient subsequent care of the publisher, which now
has felt responsible over many years for the Gesamtausgabe and, even
longer, for Karl Barth’s oeuvre. The request is therefore appropriate
that everyone connected to Karl Barth’s theology or, better, attentive
to the necessary impulse that can come from it and be fruitful in
today’s church and society may accompany the undertaking of the
realization of the prospect presented here with their good will and
benevolence.
(The original German version of this article appeared in
Verkündigung und Forschung 46 (2001): 6-10, published by Gütersloher
Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn. Translated into the English by Matthias Gockel,
Center for Barth Studies, Princeton, NJ, USA.)