Our time is not one generally characterized by ro-bust confessionalism or by an appreciation of historic Christian and Reformation creeds, let alone a penchant for formulating contemporary confessions in that same tradition. Thus we should be immediately grateful for theologians such as Eberhard Busch who take the time to initiate a "conversation" with such a document, in this case the Heidelberg Catechism of 1563.
His book is not intended to be a contribution to the upcoming anniversary of said catechism in 2013, as the German original was published already in 1998. The title of the book draws on a statement by Zwingli, which says that "God favors freedom." It is no surprise that Busch, professor emeritus of Reformed theology at the University of Göttingen and assistant and successor to Karl Barth, would be intrigued by such a statement. He uses the idea of freedom as a guiding principle of interpretation to the Heidelberg. Unfortunately, such an approach is fraught with problems, especially as the catechism with which he sets out to "converse" does not easily lend itself to such an interpretation.
Busch has to start with an entire set of presuppositions in order to make his interpretative grid work. The first is a function of the genre of the book. He lets the reader know from the start that his "primary purpose is not to understand the Heidelberg Catechism" (xii), but rather to use it as a "conversation partner." So in any given instance where Busch deviates demonstrably from the intent and theology of the catechism and from the animating spirit of the church in the Palatinate’and there are many of those instances’he can revert to this methodological presupposition and claim he is not interpreting the catechism, but rather "translating" it.
Second, in order for his guiding principle to work, Busch needs to show that the Heidelberg Catechism was written as a "union confession" (14) for both "Philippistic" and moderately Calvinistic parties in the Palatinate, that it was a "compromise document" (11) that is only "midly-Reformed," not explicitly so. Busch does not succeed in showing this but merely asserts this untenable thesis. For example, he claims that the catechism's launching pad of the "only comfort" in question 1 puts it "closer to Melanchthon than to the theologians in Zurich and Geneva" (14). The composition of the catechism was driven, he assumes, by a desire to prevent the split between the Lutherans and the Reformed (14), again asserting that the only polemic found in the catechism is the polemic vis-à-vis the Roman church, especially Trent (14, 17; despite, e.g., the rejection of the ubiquity of Christ in question 76), and that the Heidelberg only really became a "purely Reformed text" under the opposition and pressure of the Gnesio-Lutherans (17). Only if these things are in fact true can the Heidelberg serve as a manifesto of the freedom of God and the freedom of man an attempt to secure peaceful coexistence of an ecumenical Protestantism in the face of opposition and oppression.
This book is no easy read, although linguistically well crafted and oftentimes engaging. Following the outline of the catechism, it falls into three main headings, under which Busch treats almost every question in some shape or form and more or less in consecutive order. As the "primary purpose" of the book is not to understand the catechism (xii), it is no surprise that the reader is told he does not actually need the catechism in hand. However, I found myself constantly reaching for the latter, quite often only to be disappointed at Busch's handling (or mishandling) of a given question. There are more theological and interpretative problems with this work that can possibly be addressed here. I mention but a few.
Expanding on the Zwingli quote above, Busch routinely draws on Barth's notion of God "putting his own freedom on the line"; i.e., ontologically limiting himself to make room for the freedom of man. For sure, Barth's fingerprints are all over the book, which does not serve to alleviate problems but rather multiplies them. There can be seen in Busch an unwillingness to make ontological, nonactualistic statements about the nature of God, for example when he says that the sacrifice on the cross is first of all that God "sacrifices being untouched by suffering and death" (186). The hypostatic union too becomes, no pun intended, an event (103).
Positively, Busch describes the Trinity as an explanation of the gospel (115), but then makes statements that can (or have to?) be understood along modalist lines: the Trinity is "God's own self" again and again, in different modes. Following Barth, he rejects the use of "persons," preferring "to say that these three are three forms [German: Weisen]…in which God lives" and acts. We see the influence of Barth also in the emphasis on Scripture being only a "witness to" the Word of God ("I do not believe the Bible," 8), which we only have when we hear the gospel in it (107).
Also very troubling, though again not without precedent, is Busch's view of history, or rather the distinction between two kinds of histories. The Fall did not occur in history; the "chronological notion of an original blameless condition of humans…is not appropriate" (79). A human being cannot have thrust the world into perdition (because of the freedom of God), thus man cannot really sin, as sin is the impossible possibility (cf. Barth). On the flipside of this, as Berkouwer once put it, there is no real "transition from wrath to grace" in history. While God always loves us, he also never really "ceases to be our judge" (82); and "anger is the hidden form of the love of God" for all of humanity (192). Busch accepts an Anselmian ransom view of the cross, but does not see it in the Heidelberg, where he believes the emphasis is not on the need for God's wrath to be propitiated. Beyond this, we see the pervasive presence of a (hypothetical) universalism à la Barth. Busch rejects the "thinly populated" heaven of Martin Luther in which Romanists, Enthusiasts, Baptists, Zwinglians, Jews, and Muslims have no place (125), discards a "dualistic confrontation between believers and unbelievers" (125), and opts for a "wider hope" and some version of the "anonymous Christian" instead, which he ironically develops, in "conversation" with the exclusivist question 20 of the catechism (125). That being said, Busch is strongest in his descriptions of the consistent monergism of the catechism.
Continuing in the second article of the Apostles' Creed, Busch calls the virginity of Mary "a legend," even if a "meaningful" one (180). God is free and does not need for a virgin to become pregnant. The author completely misunderstands (and therefore rejects) the Reformed extra calvinisticum by reading it as a rejection of the possibility that the Son of God could truly become man (206-7), which is a heresy it was never intended to express.
The section on the church reveals the same weaknesses one finds in Barth: the church is where Christ is, in an existential encounter, but not vice versa. On the basis of Galatians 3:28, Busch rejects gender distinctions in the ministry and offices of the church. In the discussion on the sacraments, especially baptism, Busch rejects or ignores traditional covenant theology and puts up a straw man: either all children are automatically incorporated into the church by the power of the church, or they are not part of the church at all (235)! Thus there is no room for covenant children, and therefore "infant baptism cannot be justified" (246).
While there are many more theological issues that would have to be addressed, I want to conclude by mentioning some translation and formal issues. The Eerdmans translation has opted for gender-neutral language throughout, especially with reference to God, which is often cumbersome and does not reflect the German original. There are some unfortunate misspellings in the English (e.g., Datheus instead of Dathenus; Laske instead of Laski), as well as numerous faulty or misspelled quotations in the footnotes.
All of the concerns listed cause me to caution every potential reader, especially those with little grasp of solid, biblical, confessional Reformed theology. Readers had best not think that with this book they have a trusted guide to the interpretation of the Heidelberg Catechism, or to Reformed theology, or the "Christian Faith Today."
