Taking a Break from Luther

***“Calvin is a cataract, a primeval forest, a demonic power, something directly down from Himalaya, absolutely Chinese, strange, mythological; I lack completely the means, the suction cups, even to assimilate this phenomenon, not to speak of presenting it adequately. What I receive is only a thin little stream and what I can then give out again is only a yet thinner extract of this little stream. I could gladly and profitably set myself down and spend all the rest of my life just with Calvin” (Letter to Eduard Thurneysen, June 8, 1922).

The musings of the 36 year old Karl Barth upon acceptance of the Chair in Reformed Theology at Göttingen after his own “bombshell dropped into the playground of the theologians,” his peculiar commentary “The Epistle to the Romans,” made him a star in the theological world.

Do not imagine that acquaintance with Calvin’s disciples or Calvin’s interpreters approaches acquaintance with the man himself. He did not get to be Calvin by spoiling otherwise happy gatherings with fierce debates about predestination and an angry God. Read him for yourself. Start with the Institutes (1559) in the Battles/McNeill edition. You will meet more of yourself there than you expected and you will begin to understand how Barth could become so alternately awestruck and smitten.