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Two pages earlier, referring to Barth's procedure, he says: "If this procedure meant that one regarded, as Luther did, the mind of Christ as the final criterion of Scripture as well as the final norm oflaw of law one would have a creative freedom over all law, including the positive law of states, the 'natural law' so dear to Catholic thought, and even Scriptural laws as concocted by Protestant literalism from various ethical injunctions embodied in the canon and representing various levels in relation to the law of love. But it does not seem to mean this" (Essays in Applied Christianity: 180, 178).

Significantly, Niebuhr makes essentially the same criticism of Barth's procedure as Bultmann makes -- namely, that, lacking, as it does, any "principle of selection," it is "arbitrary." In Niebuhr's terms: Barth does not give a "criterion for determining what is time-bound and what is timeless in . . . Scriptural injunctions"; or he never makes clear "just by what measure you determine what is time-bound in Scripture and what is not" (179, 308; italics added).

23 May 2003