In 1916 Barth began working on his commentary on Romans, which was eventually released in 1919. During this period of working on Romans, Barth became more critical of the religious socialists as well as liberal theology, although he continued his active involvement in the SPS. At the end of 1917 he ceased his involvement in the religious-socialist movement. Barth and Thurneysen resigned from the committee from the conference in Olten, which had resolved on the reorganization of religious socialism on December 10.261 When it came to a relation between socialism and Christendom, Thurneysen mentions Blumhardt and Kutter as two men who had heard the command of the time and fulfilled it, although not denying the inspiration of Ragaz.262 For Thurneysen the whole problem of ethics and its related eschatological question not only would be a question of the art of theological dialectics, but must be rolled up in a completely new way, forced by the real dialectics of life as such.263
Likewise, Barth’s socialism can be expressed theologically and eschatologically in light of the kingdom of God or the absolute Revolution of God. His socialist praxis, therefore, maintains a theological character and contour. In this regard we notice that Barth would stand closer to Ragaz politically, but with a theological affinity to Kutter. But Barth hesitated with religious socialists in general. The term “Revolution of God” was generally used in the circle of religious socialism. Barth appropriated this term from religious socialism in order to develop, clarify, and radicalize his theological position and political radicalism in his Romans I and II in particular. Herein we discern Barth’s position “on the most extreme left side” within the SPS. When it comes to Barth’s socialist activity within the SPS in Safenwil, he distanced himself from Zimmerwald leftists. But given his friendship with Fritz Lieb (1892–1970), we can assume that Barth’s position was in line with left-wing radical socialists within the SPS at this time. Later he would move toward the Second and a half International under the leadership of Robert Grimm, which was formed in protest against the Third International.264
Later in his lecture on Schleiermacher, Barth recalled his relationship with Kutter and Ragaz:
what we needed for preaching, instruction, and pastoral care was a “wholly other” theological foundation. It seemed impossible to proceed any further on the basis of Schleiermacher . . . But where else could we turn? Kutter was also impossible, because he, like Ragaz later on, would have nothing to do with theology, but only wanted to know and to preach the “living God.” He was also impossible for me, because, with all due respect for him and his starting point, his “living God” had become extremely suspicious to me after his wartime book Reden an die deutsche Nation [Speeches to the German Nation].265
1. Busch, Karl Barth: His Life, 34.
2. Ibid., 37.
3. Barth, Vorträge und kleinere Arbeiten, 1905–1909, 74.
4. Busch, Karl Barth: His Life, 44.
5. For Ritschl “the Christian idea of the kingdom of God denotes the association of mankind—an association both extensively and intensively the most comprehensive possible—through the reciprocal moral action of its members, action which transcends all merely natural and particular considerations” (Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, 98).
6. Besides, there was another reason for Barth’s ill feeling against Ritschl. During the period of Barth’s honorary professorship at Göttingen, Walter Rathenau, the Reichsminister for Foreign Affairs, and of Jewish origin, was assassinated. Regarding this event the faculty at Göttingen took no action. As the prototype of the national, liberal German bourgeoisie, Ritschl was, for Barth, “a sturdy, dry, insensitive lump who notices nothing.” Cf. Barth to Thurneysen, 28 June 1922, in B-Th II, 88–89.
7. Barth, From Rousseau to Ritschl, 392.
8. McCormack, Critically Realistic, 38–41.
9. B-B, 153.
10. Busch, Karl Barth: His Life, 38.
11. Ibid., 39.
12. Barth, “Principles of Dogmatics according to Wilhelm Herrmann,” 238.
13. Marquardt, “Erster Bericht über Karl Barths ‘Sozialistisches Reden,’” 478.
14. In the edition of “Evangelium und Sozialismus, 1914, “S” is versed as S[afenwil], which is less convincing. Cf. Barth, Vorträge und kleinere Arbeiten, 2:731. Cf. Marquardt, “Erster Bericht über Karl Barths ‘Sozialistisches Reden,’” 470–88.
15. Grundmann, “Why Is Werner Sombart Not Part of the Core of Classical Sociology?” 257–87.
16. In this regard, Parsons said that Sombart has “assimilated the main content of Marx into the framework of historico-idealistic thought.” See Parsons, Structure of Social Action, 495.
17. Engels, “Supplement to ‘Capital Vol. 3,’” 893–94.
18. Barth, “Principles of Dogmatics according to Wilhelm Herrmann,” 238–39.
19. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 93.
20. Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, 38.
21. Cohen, “Kant, 1896,” 70.
22. Marxismsus und Ethik, eds. Sandkühler and Rafael de la Vega, 17.
23. Ibid.
24. Marquardt, “Erster Bericht über Karl Barths ‘Sozialistisches Reden,’” 479.
25.