Why Do We Wish for Peace?

Over the past several months, I have been reading Karl Barth's extensive, and theologically influential, commentary on The Epistle to the Romans.  The argument is usually fairly dense, so I tend to read a few short sections a week.

Karl Barth was a Swiss theologian who offered a significant challenge to conventional Western theology in the early 20th Century.  A student of John Calvin (among others), Barth consistently emphasizes the complete glory and power of God -- God who must necessarily be kept distinct from sinful human beings.

As with any system of thought, there are strengths and weaknesses to this perspective.  Barth, I think, has a significant challenge explaining the purpose and nature of God's creation, as described in Genesis.  On the other hand, Barth consistently insists that we must recognize God not through human imagination (with its limitations and distorted ego-centrism), but as the transcendent Being whose ways are not human ways and whose purposes are not human purposes.

In this season of Advent, I was intrigued to come across a discussion of the nature of peace.  (Historically speaking, it is also interesting to note that this commentary was published in the early 1930s, just as the Nazis were coming to power in Germany.)  Like the best of Barth, he encourages us to move beyond our common assumptions, and he forcefully redirects the meaning of peace toward his understanding of God.

There is no such thing as a 'good conscience' either in war or in peace.  Even the most sturdy defender of peace knows that we are always in the position of being unable to see the One in the other.  He knows, too, that we must always abhor the evil which is in the other.  The One in the other has no concrete, visible existence.  In relation to the problem of war the knowledge of God means that we must descend from every warlike high place; but this does not mean that we must then proceed to ascend at once to some high place of peace.  The knowledge of God directs us to God; it does not direct us to some human position or to some human course of action either in time of war or in time of peace.  A Church which knows its business well will, it is true, with a strong hand keep itself free from militarism; but it will also with a friendly gesture rebuff the attentions of pacifism.  The earnestness of the command that we should be at peace lies in its capacity to illustrate the first commandment; it directs us, that is, to God. (Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, trans. Edwyn C. Hoskyns, Oxford University Press, 1933, p. 471)

I know that this kind of thinking challenges our cherished notions that we are trying to "do good" in this world, especially when we pray for peace.  But I wonder if it might just perfectly accord with the promise of Christ, spoken by the angels: "Glory to God in heaven, and on earth, peace...."  The peace promised the first Christmas is not created by human hands, but is given by God alone, through the incarnation of Jesus Christ. If this is so, then our hope for peace should ultimately be a desire for God's peace.  It certainly is food for thought this holy season.