Barth on Intellect

Barth issues a sharp caution for those who frequently condemn the Reformed emphasis on the “primacy of the intellect” ( CD 1.1): “What man does when he uses this faculty, when he thinks and tries to understand, can in fact be indolence, hubris or both like any other human self-determination. But is not the same true of feeling, conscience, will, or anything else one might mention here? Are they not all self-determination, and no less so? Can they be less so seeing that the differences regarding the relation of spontaneity and receptivity which might call for consideration at this point drop seriously in importance vis a vis the comprehensive determination of the whole of human existence by God’s Word? Is it not an arbitrary pre-judgment that specifically in the act of thought man is man in a poorer sense than in his other self-actualizations? . . . We recall the fact, established earlier that it is not just in the last resort, but primarily and predominantly, that God’s Word is literally speech, i.e., an intellectual event. If this is so, then its being spoken to man must at least claim the intellect too, and experience of it must at least include also the intellect, and the claiming of the intellect.” Point taken. But I suspect that the real gravaman of the “primacy of the intellect” criticism is precisely that it has been used to suppress the fact that the Word confronts the whole man. That is, the problem is not so much the primacy of the intellect, but the delusion that it can be distilled and isolated from emotion, will, indigestion, and so on. But, Barth is correct that an attack on the primacy of the intellect should not slip into an attack on thinking, or rigor in thinking.