W o rsh ip a n d T h e o lo g y

Oswald Bayer

Theology reflects on knowledge and action. It considers dogma and

morality. Knowledge and action, dogma and morality are however
grounded in worship. In this essay I therefore put forward a concept
of theology which has worship as both its source and goal.
This claim, that theology should be worked out with worship as
both its source and goal, seems to be almost self-evident in Anglican
thought. But in the tradition of German-speaking theology and its
ethics it is very far from self-evident.
So it is an unusual departure for a German Protestant theologian
to begin with worship and not with theology - to treat it as the very
starting-point, and only then go on from the concept of worship to
develop what can count as theology.
The second shift concerns the concept of worship in itself. I should
like to focus first not on specific Christian worship but on general
worship, which is identical with religion in general. In distinguishing
and relating general and specific worship it is right not to let general
worship become too vague in its scope, nor to let the latter become
too narrow in its definition. We are not dealing here with two different
areas of study, but with a single area.

I. Worship

1.1 G en eral W orship: the C h u rch as an O rd e r o f C reatio n

According to the Yahwist’s story of creation the first word of G od to

human beings is the promise of life (Gen. 2.16): ‘You may eat . . . ! ’.
This promise of life is protected by a threat of death (Gen. 2.17): ‘But
 W orihip and TH®do|y 149

from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you may not eat; for
on the day on which you eat from it, you will surely die.’
On this passage Martin Luther pithily remarks in his lecture on
G enesis o f 1535: ‘H aec est institutio Ecclesiae, antequam esset Oecono-
mia st Politia’,1 that is, the Church was instituted before the economy
or politics, not a specific church, but a general church ‘sine muris’2 -
without walls. It exists in word and faith, in that G od calls human
beings into life, ‘preaches’ to them, ‘sets forth his word to them’,3 and
so ‘wills only that they praise G od and thank him, in order to delight
in the L o rd .’4
There are three basic forms of life (orders, estates) which are to
be distinguished and related, in which the creative word of G od has
ordered, provided and constituted humanity: Church, Economy (in­
cluding matrimony and the family), and Politics. O f these Church is
the first; it is the basic order. The basic order is that of the human
being whom G od addresses, who is made for thankful and free re­
sponse. The humanity of human beings consists in the fact that they
are called into life by G od, are addressed by him, and so can hear and
themselves speak in response - and must be responsible.5 In G od ’s
address and the expected human response there lies the basic process
of worship, the basic process of religion, cult and Church, understood
as an order of creation; all people and all religions belong to it. Every
person, sim ply by being a person, belongs to Church as an order of
creation, it defines him as a person, though it is corrupted by the in­
gratitude of human beings, by their sin, and so in fact it is no longer
Church.
It may seem at first sight an astonishing claim that worship, Church,
is an order o f creation. The advantage of doing so will be shown in
what follows. From the promise of life which is valid for all people
from the very beginning (Gen. 2.16), and from G od ’s self-presentation:
' I am the L ord , your G od ’ (Ex. 20.2) and the first commandment -
‘You shall have no other gods but me’ (Ex. 20.2), as from the threat

1 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis (1535-1545), WA 42, 79, 3.

2 ibid., 79, 4.
3 ibid., 80, 2 (‘proponit ei verbum’).
4 ibid., 81, 3f. (‘H oc tantum vult, ut laudet Deum, ut gratias ei agat, ut laetetur in
Domino . . . ” C f. the continuation: 'et ei in hoc obediat, ne ex vetita arbore comedat’,
ibid., 81, 4.)
5 v.i. ‘Social Ethics as an Ethics of Responsibility’ .
150 O s w a ld Buyer

of death which protects the promise of lile (Gen. 2.17), there arises a
peculiar ‘natural’ theology and at the same time a phenomenology of
religion. In line with Rom. 1.18-3.20 it reckons with a relationship to
G od within which everyone lives, though factually and practically it
is always a failure; it is a false, perverted relationship. Reason - not
primarily theoretical reason but practical reason guided by the power
of imagination - always reaches after G od, but at the same time misses
him, as Luther pointedly puts it (on Jonah, 1.5, ‘Then the people were
afraid and each cried to his god’), ‘these people in the ship all know of
G od’, ‘but have no certain G od.’6 To make G od certain is the office
of Jesus Christ.
The community which arises from the self-presentation of G od
in his creation is always faulty, thus Church as an order of creation
is corrupted; the whole creation is dragged into this corruption and
‘groans’ (Rom. 8.18-23). The G od who speaks to the creature through
the creature is therefore present and active only in law and gospel; yet
also beyond law and gospel, in G o d ’s terrible hiddenness, in which I
can no longer hear him, at any rate no longer ‘understand’, but only
‘hear’ him as terrifying, experience him as crushing, dreadful, sinister,
and flee from him - to the gracious and merciful God, to the Father,
who allows himself to be seen to his heart through his Son, and who
is love, entirely love.
By deciding to consider first not specific but general worship and
its basic corruption, we have been brought to questions in the field
of religious studies. Certainly we can not assume some general study
of religion which provides a ‘framework’ ‘in which Christian theo­
logy with all its disciplines must find its place.’7 Rather the inevitable
‘perspective of a world history of religions’8 arises only from that
‘middle’ (Gen. 2.9) which is established in primeval times with that
promise of life which is valid for all people and for all creatures. And
nowhere can it be heard more critically and more comfortingly than
in the preamble to the decalogue and the first commandment, ‘I am
the Lord your God, You shall have no other gods but me.’ (Ex. 20.2)

6 Martin Luther, Commentary on the Prophet Jonah (1526) WA 19, 208, 21 f.

7 Wolfhart Pannenberg, Wissenschaftstheorie und Theologie [The Theory o f Knowledge
and Theology], 364. Frankfurt, 1973; cf. however the important relativising, ibid.,
42 If.
8 ibid., 364.
 Worship «ntl T h e o lo g y 151

Luther’s explanation of the first commandment in the Large Cate­

chism reveals strikingly how vast a concept of religion one can attain
by interpreting the first commandment. With this concept of religion
we can grasp the dimension of a theology of creation, and - as is
shown in the doctrine of the three orders or estates as forms of life -
also the way our social and individual existence is bound up with our
elemental experience of the world, coping with basic needs. But if so,
then necessarily we are in the realms of cultural anthropology and
sociology. Religious studies is also concerned with institutions.
We have now sketched the basic features of a doctrine of a general
worship. The challenge of such a doctrine to theology is inescapable -
and not only in respect of its relation to the world religions; it arises
from its own sources, from the biblical texts. It needed to be addressed
lest specific worship, to which we now turn our attention, appears
isolated, positivistic and arbitrary.

1.2 Specific W orship

In Christian worship the restoration of the corrupted order of the

Church, which is brought about by Jesus Christ, is bestowed and
distributed. ‘Distribution’9 is something more and other than, say,
‘representation’.10 For it is not a representation as an expression, not
declaration, but bestowing promise. With the promise of the forgive­
ness of sins, and so the healing of our basic ingratitude to the Creator,
everything hangs on the effective word of God, which precedes our
faith, so that faith and prayer, human response, can never lead to an

9 Cf. Martin Luther, Against the Divine Prophets o f Pictures and Sacrament (1526)
WA 18, 204, 3f.; 205, 13f. Accordingly salvation is ‘acquired’ on the C ross (sub
Pontio Pilato), but it is ‘distributed’ in the Word (from the beginning of the world
to its end).
lO^FfieHnch Sqhleiermacher understands worship as an act of ‘presentation’ (not an
, / ‘efficacious’ act), in D ie christliche Sitte [Christian Morality], ed. Ludw ig Jonas,
( SW 1/12, 502^706 (esp. 599-620). Berlin, 2nd ed. 1884; id., Die praktische Theologie
\ [Practical Theology], ed. Jacob Frerichs, SW 1/13, 68-82. Berlin, 1850. A (not uncrit-
LtsaJJjyapjröpriation of Schleiermacher’s category o f ‘presentation’ is undertaken by
Peter Cornehl in ‘Theorie des Gottesdienstes - ein Prospekt’ [‘Theory of Worship:
the Prospects’], in ThQ 15 9, 178-195. Tübingen, 1979.
 152 O sw a ld llayor

understanding ol worship simply as a ‘self-realisation of the church’.11

Even as the response ol the Church laitli remains the work of God.
Given the widespread ecclesiological and sacramental theological argu­
ments - evident in the use of the category of ‘representation’, and talk
of the ‘self-realisation of the Church’, of the Church as an original
sacrament12 - the criterion of specific worship which Luther urged
from the beginning of his Reformation theology is not at all self-
evident. It lies in the event of word and faith, promissio and fides —
classically formulated in the work, The Babylonian Captivity o f the
Church (1520): ‘G od has never had, nor does he ever have, any dealing
with humanity except by the word of promise. Conversely, we can
never have anything to do with G od except by faith in the word of
promise.’13 This correlation of word and faith, in which first comes
the word, only then faith - prevenient word and following faith - re-
mains for Luther the criterion of true worship. In 1544, at the end of
I his life, at the consecration of the church at Torgau Castle, his concern
was that ‘this new house should be directed so that nothing else takes
place in it, but that our dear Lord himself speaks with us through his
holy word, and we in turn speak with him in prayer and songs of
\ praise.’14
Public word and inner prayer as ‘the converse of the heart with G od
in supplication and intercession, thanks and adoration’,15 are insepar­
ably linked with each other. For that reason ‘religion as a private af­
fair’16 is unthinkable. The word which creates faith is a ‘bodily word’,

11 Cf. Karl Rahner, Grundkurs des Glaubens [Fundamentals o f Faith}, 403f. Munich,
1976.
12 On the understanding of the Church as an original sacrament cf. O tto Semmelroth,
The Church as Original Sacrament. Frankfurt, 3rd ed. 1963; cf. his article ‘Original
Sacrament’ in LThK, Vol. X , 568f. Freiburg, 1965. Karl Rahner, Kirche und Sacra-
mente, Quaestiones disputatae [Church and Sacraments: Disputed Questions] 10, 17,
Freiburg, 1960.
13 M. Luther, D e Captivitate, WA 6, 516, 30-32; cf. ibid., 517, 8f; 514, 14f.
14
15 Konfirmatitmsbtfch der Evangelischen Landeskirchen in Würrtemberg, Stuttgart, 33,
10th ed. 1962 (Answer to the question: What is prayer?). Cf. Ps. 19.15 (‘The words
of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart before you, Lo rd’).
16 C f. Osw ald Bayer, ‘Leibliches Wort. Öffentlichkeit des Glaubens und Freiheit des
Lebens’ [‘Bodily Word. The Public Nature of Faith and the Freedom of Life’], in
Leibliches Wort. Reformation und Neuzeit im Konflikt [Bodily Word. Reformation
and Modernity in Conflict], 57-72, esp. 66-68. Tübingen, 1992.
 Wnnthip and Tlicolcigy 153

as the A u g sb u rg C o n fession in its filth article em phasises against the

enthusiasts.
The elements of externality in this word can be read off the Lord’s
Supper. Here there is an interplay of four elements: first of all the
social and at the same time natural and cultural element of common
eating and drinking is constitutive. This process, which is a real, bod­
ily and present experience, is inseparable from the gift-word of Jesus
Christ, as the cited speaker. It is therefore inseparable from the New
Covenant17, the creation brought home to God, the final communion
between G od and humanity, together with all creatures. This eschato-
logical community gathers together bodily. Yet it is first and foremost
as sinners that they gather, who are on their way to becoming the
eschatological community, through the performative word which ad­
dresses them by means of wine and bread, which has its competence,
power and authority only from the raising of the crucified Jesus.18
If one reads off the constitutive elements of the ‘bodily w ord’ in
the event of the Lord’s Supper, then we do not become aware of the
authority of the word of G od and the H oly Scriptures in some rigid
revelatory positivism, nor does it drown in the inexhaustible ocean
of explanation and appropriation. There is no need to lay claim to
the totality of the historical world of modernity as an institutional
counterweight to subjectivity, which is a totality that says nothing,
because it says everything.19 Rather one is referred to an event which
has a clear shape and can be experienced in the present, where Word
as Body and Body as Word come into their own christologically,
ecclesiologically, anthropologically and eschatologically.
We have now given the major aspects for the development of a
concept of specific worship. It would not be difficult to go on to
reflect on the discrete elements and their relationships. I have spelled
out elsewhere what could be inferred by taking the example of ‘the

17 H ow far the New Covenant is a distinctive mark of externality is shown in Leibliches

Wort (see n. 16), 309.
18 Cf. Oswald Bayer, ‘Tod Gottes und Herrenmahr [‘The Death of G od and the
L ord’s Supper’] in Leibliches Wort (see n. 16), 289-305; id., ‘Kurzer Begriff des
ganzen Evangeliums. D as Herrenmahl als Mitte des Glaubens’ [A Summary of the
Whole Gospel: The Lord’s Supper as the Centre of Faith’], ibid., 306-313.
19 Cf. Leibliches Wort (see n. 16), 61-63.
 154 Oiwald Bayir

complaint G od hears’, which touches on the liturgy: concretely in the

Kyrie and the prayers of intercession.20
There are just two more vantage points left to mention, which are
decisive for specific worship and thereby for restored general worship:
sacrifice and gift, and celebration.

1.2.1. Sacrifice and Gift

W4*rship is first and last G o d 'sse rw c L to u s) his sacrifice which took

place for us, which he bestows in specific worship - ‘Take and eat! I am
here for you’ (cf. I Cor. 11.24 with Gen. 2.16). T his feature of worship
is lost if we want to do as a work what we may receive as a gift.21
‘We do not present a good work, we do not actively communicate’ -
perhaps in a self-realisation of the Church; through the priest as the
servant of the divine Word ‘we rather receive the promise and the sign
and communicate passively.’22 We may not ascribe to the sacramental
gift-word the chaTacterofiprayer; and the good deed which we should
take and receive may not be presented to G od as a sacrifice.23 The
Lord’s Supper is not a ‘sacrifice which could be brought to G od’,24
in it rather the condescension and self-sacrifice of G od encounters us,
which he communicates to us. We receive his sacrifice.
‘The mystery of Christian holiness consists not in services, sacrifices
and vows, which G od demands of humans, but rather in promises,
fulfillments and sacrifices, which G od has done and achieved for the
benefit of humans; not in the great and huge commandment which
G od imposed, but in the highest good, which G od gave as a gift;
not in legislation and moral doctrines, which concern merely human
sentiments and human actions, but in execution of divine decrees by
means of divine deeds, works and institutions for the salvation of the
whole world.’25

20 Cf. Osw ald Bayer, ‘Erhörte Klage’ [‘The Complaint G od H ears’], in Leibliches Wort
(see n. 16), 334-348.
CTO Cf. M. Luther, D e Captivitate, WA 6, 520, 33-36.
a h ibid., 521, 29f.
G g k C f. ibid., 522, 27-29.
24 ibid., 523, 9f.
25 Johann Georg Hamann, Golgatha und Scheblimini, ed. Josef Nadler, 6 vols., 1949-
57, III, 312, lines 6-17 (emphases removed).
 W orahip and T h e o lo g y 155

In specific worship one is to hear, taste and - through the word -

see, that what holds the world together at its heart is not, say, the
Categorical Imperative, but the categorical gift. Specific worship does
not cultivate a religious province, but discloses the world as creation.
From his Reformation realisation that the word,s of institution of the
Lord’s Supper are at their heart a gift-word, Luther went on to dis­
cover his understanding of creation as gracious gift, which was so
significant for him. The gift-word of the Lord’s Supper is what he has
in ear, sight and heart when he perceives and acknowledges that every
action of the trinitarian G od is a bestowing promise and promising
bestowal.26
Corresponding to the universal character of the categorical gift is
the universality of the response, for which we are empowered through
the gift and the promise: T owe G od thanks and praise for everything,
and so serve and obey him.’ An attitude of giving and loving is in­
cluded in the response - included,~L>ut not identfcal with it'. So it
might beTnlstakenly inferred from Romans 12.If that ‘the doctrine of
worship is identical with the Christian ethic.’27 In no way can this
magna charta of our new obedience (Rom .12.lf) be understood along
with Roman Catholic thought as a joint sacrifice of the believer which
is shown forth in the eucharist.28 This claim fails just as much as the
twin claim of worship being ‘identical with the Christian ethic.’29 Both
claims lead to the removal of the necessary distinction between faith
as the service of G od to human beings and love as the service of be­
lievers to other creatures. This distinction is necessary for salvation; it
cannot be removed.
The sacrifice and worship of which Rom. 12.1f speaks characterises
the significance of baptism within the whole of the letter to the R o ­
mans. The two verses endorse the significance of baptism not only at
the ethical level but beyond the ethical by touching our whole bod­

26 Cf. On the Supper o f Christ. Confession. (1528) WA 26, 505, 38-506, 7, and in the
Large Catechism (1529) WA 30/1, 191, 28-192, 29 (B SL K 660 18-661, 42).
27 Ernst Käsemann, ‘Gottesdienst im Alltag der Welt’ [‘Worship in the Everyday
World’], in Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen [Exegetical Explorations and Re­
flections], II, 198-204 (201). Göttingen, 1964. See Oswald Bayer, Theologie (H and­
buch Systematischer Theologie, Vol. 1), 401, n.39. Gütersloh, 1994.
28 Against Ulrich Wilkens, D er Brief an die Römer [The Letter to the Romans] (E K K
VI/3). 8f. Zürich/Einsiedeln/Köln und Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1982.
29 Cf. n. 27.
156 O s w a ld B a y e r

ily percept on of the world. The significance of baptism - walking in

newness of life (Rom. 6.4) - has to be worked out in comprehensive
aesthetics. Creation can be perceived only through G od ’s judgment,
otherwise to speak of creation is idle talk.
And so we have come to the second major aspect - celebration.

1.2.2. Celebration as dying

First of all, ‘festival’ [Fest] and ‘celebration’ [Feier = both ‘celebration’

and ‘rest from work’] mean hard and unpalatable facts. ‘For nature
dies and suffers very unpleasantly, and it is a bitter feast day for it
to have to rest from its works.’30 This is certainly unpalatable for
modern humanity, since - and this even affects the theology of Barth31
and Bultmann32 - the human being can only understand himself as
a worker and a doer (in Barth by analogy with God). This human
being is revealed most clearly in Karl Marx, for whom the world
only exists insofar as it is self-produced through human work.33 Here
that powerful basis of life, the sabbath, Sunday, is forgotten. If this
power is granted to us as a categorical gift, then the compulsion to
realise oneself - not only in works but also in deeds, even the deed
of faith - must die. That is the hard and unpalatable side of worship
as celebration. This side finds its validity if the sermon is perceived
as a memoria baptismi - a memorial of baptism34 - and worship is

30 Martin Luther, On Good Works (1520), WA 6, 248, 26f. (Exposition of the third
commandment). In order to understand this whole section it is to be observed that
in German the verb feiern means both ‘to celebrate’ and ‘to rest from w ork’ or ‘to
have a holiday from w ork’.
31 Cf. Karl Barth, K D II/2, 594: ‘To be a human being is to act. And acting means
choosing, means deciding.’ Cf. Theologie (see n. 27), 402, n. 43.
32 ibid. (Theologie), 402, n. 44.
33 Karl Marx, Ökonomisch-philosophische Manuskripte, Marx/Engels Gesamtausgabe,
Pt I, Vol.I/2, 292. Berlin, 1982. C f. ibid., 274, 22-26: ‘Given that for socialist man
the whole so-called history of the world is nothing other than the creation of man
through human work, than nature becoming subject to man’s needs, he has the vivid
irresistible proof that he gives birth to himself . . . ’ C f. Hegel: The true being of man
is . . . his action; in action his individuality is real . . . ’ Phänomenologie des Geistes
[Phenomenology o f Mind], ed. J. Hoffmeister, 236. Hamburg, 6th ed., 1952.
34 M. Luther, D e Captivitate, WA, 6, 528, 8-17.
 W om hip #nd T h e o lo g y 157

understood intrinsically on the basis of baptism. Then this dying of

which Romans 6 speaks cannot be ignored.
Such a dying makes way for life. ‘You shall rest from your work,
so that God may work in you.’35 That is the quite delightful effect
of celebration - it removes our burdens and spasms. Faith is nothing
other than this: ‘a divine work in us that changes us and gives us new
birth from G od (Jn. 1.13; cf. Jn. 3) whereby G od kills the old Adam,
and makes of us totally different persons in heart, spirit, mind and all
our powers.’36
If this is true, if it is right to celebrate and to endure G od ’s work
in us, then faith is primarily neither theory nor praxis, neither vita
contemplativa nor vita activa but - and Luther found a special phrase
for it - vita passiva? 7
What this means for the concept of theology must now be shown.

I I Theology

If worship has the universal dimensions which we have made evident,

then theology, understood in the narrower sense as an intellectual
endeavour, cannot go beyond it. It can never outstrip it, not even
catch up with it. It flows from worship and moves towards it. It is -
as a special and specific intellectual endeavour - part of the faith which
hears, which loves G od not only with the whole heart but with every
power and vitality, including one’s mind and intellect (Mk. 12.30). In a
broad sense theology is identical with faith. Luther certainly supported
such a concept of theology - one which has been made strange for us
today in the wake of Semler and Schleiermacher. If you want to fit it
into ‘rules’, then there are three, which Luther called oratio, meditatio,
tentatio38 - these are not three separate ways of proceeding, but a
single way.

35 E K G , 240, 4 (Martin Luther).

36 Martin Luther, Foreword to the Epistle o f St. Paul to the Romans (1522); WADB,
7,10, 6-8.
37 Martin Luther, Operationes in Psalmos (1519-1521), on Ps. 5.12; WA, 5, 165, 33-166,
16.
38 Foreword to the first volume of the Wittenberg Edition of the Scriptures in German
(1539); WA, 50, 658, 29-611, 8, interpreted in Theologie (see n. 27), 55-106.
158 O iw ild Bayer

On this way sapientia and scientia, life and doctrine do not part
company. The modern forms of theology are essentially characterised
by such a rupture - which is bound up with dissolving the object of
theology.39 Theology was changed from a doctrine of the word to a
doctrine of faith - as in the case of Schleiermacher - or transformed
into a philosophy of mind and identified with thought - as with Hegel,
for whom ‘religion and philosophy are identical’, and ‘philosophy
. . . itself is worship . . . itself is religion’.40 The real human being,
one who not only thinks but also has passions, is thereby forgotten.
The passionate complaint yields to ‘the passionless calm of purely
intellectual knowledge’.41
Considering Hegel’s theorising, Schleiermacher’s psychologising,
and the moralising of Christianity in the tradition of Kant, I can see
only one way to reach a concept of theology which is responsible in
systematic theology: to pursue theology as a linguistic discipline - or
to be more precise, a doctrine of linguistic forms. Mindful of general
worship and the corrupted order of the Church, it is directed to the
forms of specific worship; it aligns itself with these forms, which are
at once a linguistic game and forms of life: above all with praise and
complaint, the cry of Kyrie, the prayers of intercession, the promised
and bestowed blessing. I have tried to grasp this orientation for the
doctrine of creation in Schopfung als Anrede [Creation as Address],
in order to develop a doctrine of creation on the basis of the morning
praise of a Paul Gerhardt42 or a clause of the catechism.43 To align
theology with the forms of worship - that is the project. In general
the envisaged doctrine of linguistic forms must be worked out con­
sidering the multiple forms and their relationships. As a criterion we
must keep in view the correlation of promissio and fides, and (for the

39 Cf. Theologie (see n. 27), esp. 276-280.

40 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion [Lec­
tures on the Philosophy o f Religion], II/2. Glöckner Edition. Vol. XV I, 315; GW
(Suhrkamp), Vol. 16, 28.
41 id., Preface to the second edition of the Wissenschaft der Logik [Science o f Logic]
(1831) Glöckner Edition, Vol. IV 35; GW (Suhrkamp), Vol. 5, 34.
42 Oswald Bayer, ‘The Morning of Creation’, in Schöpfung als Anrede. Zu einer
Hermeneutik der Schöpfung [Creation as Address: Towards a Hermeneutics o f Cre­
ation], 109-127. Tübingen, 2nd ed., 1990.
43 ibid., 80-108 (‘I believe that G od has created me, along with all creatures’).
 W o rsh ip and T h e o lo g y 159

more precise understanding of the promissio) the distinction between

law and gospel.44
As systematic theology, this theology, aligned with a doctrine of
linguistic forms, will not take its cue - as is usually the case - only
from the outline of the creed, moving from creation to eschatology.
To avoid the danger of abstraction and speculation as far as possi­
ble, it makes much more sense to see the organising principle of a
systematic theology in the distinction and relating of the clauses in
the Small Catechism.45 Calvin attempted to move in this direction in
the first edition of his Institutes (1536), but then in practice he aban­
doned it.
As a doctrine of forms theology is, so to speak, a grammar of
the language of the Bible, of the living and life-giving voice of the
gospel, which relates to the death-dealing law. Therefore theology
does not primarily seek the ‘concept’ (like Hegel), nor the ‘motive’
(with Schleiermacher and Feuerbach); it does not resolve the form
into the concept, nor absorb the form back into the motive. As a
doctrine of forms it preserves the work of form criticism within it
and endorses Franz Overbeck’s insight that speech form and life form
are indissolubly interwoven.46 In the ‘form’ social and individual lives
are bound up with the elemental experience of the world, coping with
basic needs, as already emphasised, and this does not only imply but
continually presupposes theory and practice. Therefore theology and
its ethic cannot be stretched on the Procrustean bed of a schema of
theory and praxis, nor can they primarily be a theory of action. For
as an agent the human being lives on the basis of freedom. This is not
the outcome but the presupposition of his action - a presupposition
which is certainly not a kind of postulate or implicate, but the promise
as bodily word.
As a doctrine of forms theology entails at the same time a science
of history. It is so on the basis of the promise which entails knowledge
of sin and waiting for the gift of justification. If theology were to un­
derstand history differently, then if it were not to take it as by nature
circular, or sink into scepticism or melancholy, it would have to form

44 C f. Theologie (see n. 27), Chapter 2: ‘The O bject of Theology’, where a fourfold

definition of the object of theology is made evident.
45 O n the systematics of the Catechism cf. Theologie (see n. 27), 106-114.
46 ibid.., 462, n. 265.
160 Q iw a ld B a y e r

the idea of a unity of history, a unity of reality, and speak of G od as

the unity of reality, as a totality of meaning, which one would have to
grasp after by hypotheses - but then everything eschatological would
be formalised and subordinated to the modern concept of projection
and hypothesis. But if theology entails knowledge of sin and waiting
for the gift of justification, it renounces the concept of a unity and
refuses to conjure up a meaning of history. It does not give meaning
to the meaningless.
The painful difference between the promise of life, the uncondi­
tioned, unconditional promise of life to everyone and everything, and
what daily contradicts it, cannot be disguised by theology; on the
contrary theology corresponds to the passion of complaint, which
perceives this difference. So theology necessarily entails temptation,
contestation and controversy. In renouncing the concept of a unity
of history theology also renounces theodicy - that is, justifying God
and his goodness in the face of evil. Against the G od who is inacces­
sibly distant yet at the same time insistently close, he who ‘does not
give you a definition of himself in his w ord’, but rather ‘is hidden
in majesty and does not lament or remove death, but brings about
life, death and all things’,47 theology can only speak of the G od who
promises himself definitely through the history of Christ. It refuses to
reconcile (and so at least intellectually to comprehend) the inconceiv­
able hiddenness of G od and his tangible promise, which does lament
death and brings about life through death. That dread hiddenness of
G od, which does not brighten whilst we are on our way, cannot also
be identified with his wrath and judgment, insofar as these are forms
of his love. Therefore it cannot be understood on the basis of the
distinction and correlation of law and gospel, the promise of life and
the related threat of death (Gen. 2.16f), and so resolved intellectu­
ally.
N o r by contrast is theology grounded in action, where it would be
a matter not so much of contemplating the unity of history but rather
of creating it, of making history, guided by freedom as the regulative
idea. Theology pursues no such contemplation or action, it is neither
speculative nor moralistic. It is rather practical, in the sense of an
experience, as occurs in meditation - that is the listening and learning

47 Martin Luther, D e Servo Arbitrio (1525), WA 18, 685, 21-23.

 W o r ih ip »ml T h e o lo g y 161

encounter with the biblical texts - in temptation and in prayer; it is

vita passiva,48

48 The theological concept briefly formulated here is developed in Theologie (see n. 27).
On its significance specifically for ethics see O sw ald Bayer, Freiheit als Antwort.
Zur theologischen Ethik [Freedom as Response; Theological Ethics] Tübingen 1995,
esp. 1.10: ‘ “ I am the Lord your God . . . ” The first commandment in its significance
for grounding ethics.’