Later Response Comment

A response/reflection to Karl Barth

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I am struck in general how economic language and/or ideas are used in theological systems or writings. I don’t know which discipline borrowed from which, or if such a distinction should be made. But I found one of Karl Barth’s preliminary statements to this section (010) quite provocative in saying that theology is itself a risk and “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” This capitalistic or better entrepreneurial frame interests me and further language such as the world “being sold” and the continued emphasis on covenantal relationships (like business contracts) creates the image of a stock exchange. The investment is humanity and the buyers are those inherently evil or “worldly” competing against God who is also a bidder for humans. You could even stretch to say that Jesus, the human, functions as the ideal index in setting values on individual human life (the actual stock). When Jesus, as the Son of God, humbly entered the created world this was God, the Creator’s, investment in a falling market—a proper bailout if you would—to help it rebound and stabilize.

What would be interesting is to explore the element of risk in this venture. The basic investing principle is the higher the risk, the higher the return on your investment. What was God’s rate of return? This comes to the debate between perspectives on predestination. Did God will Jesus to enter the world and enormously suffer because there was a low risk or did God hope through a high risk venture to gain a high return? This would further explore the status of humanity and human capability as a creature. And could the whole venture have failed? One could certainly suggest God is the perfected genius at strategic planning and long term investments (I hesitate to compare God’s investing genius to Warren Buffet, but God did after all create such intellect), however could considering the possibility of a failed investment suggest that God is possible of utter failure? One might consider that through the first failure of humanity (if you are taking a original sin approach) God’s investment failed and God received a pitiful rate of return through Israel. God then looking to increase this return and efficiently restructure humans (as created commodities) devised a plan of reconciliation and fulfilled a possible contract with evil demanding a high price for atonement while also establishing a new contract with humanity as a whole. How did the world and humans become a publicly traded commodity? Was it a hostile takeover? Or again, is God looking for the highest rate of return on God’s capital investment?

And should we even be framing theology in the mindset of publicly traded company?