VERY GOD, VERY MAN: A THEOLOGICAL EXPLORATION OF
KARL BARTH’S CHRISTOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
by
TYLER J.R. HARPER
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF THEOLOGY
in
THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
Master of Theology, Theology Stream
We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard
...............................................................................
Dr. Archie J. Spencer, Th.D.; Thesis Supervisor

................................................................................
Dr. Kenneth G Radant, Ph.D.; Second Reader

................................................................................
Dr. Ross Hastings, Ph.D.; External Examiner
TRINITY WESTERN UNIVERSITY

FEBRUARY 19, 2015
© Tyler J.R. Harper

Copyright © 2015 by Tyler J.R. Harper
All rights reserved

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For my parents.
From a young age you installed a love for God and love for understanding.
You taught me to think and why to think, allowing me to work out much of
my early theology around our dinner table.
“For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”
Matthew 18:20

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"#$%&"'%!
!
In opposition to the historical context of twentieth-century human centered religion, Karl
Barth argues for a theologically based anthropology, fixing human self-knowledge on divine
revelation and so constructing his understanding of humanity from within his Christology. In
founding his concept of humanity on the reality of Christ, Barth is able to avoid the twin pitfalls
of optimistic and pessimistic descriptions of humanity in the surrounding zeitgeist.
Barth’s anthropology depicts the existence of true humanity as it is only made possible
and represented by the person of Jesus Christ, who is simultaneously God for humanity and
humanity for God. For Barth, this is humankind as it was created to be. This thesis examines
Barth’s corpus to answer the question: Does a coherent theological treatment of humanity exist
throughout Barth’s corpus, as it is grounded in the person of Jesus Christ?

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"!
The Scholarly Debate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #!
Research Question !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"$!
Thesis Statement !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"$!
Methodology !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"%!
Procedure !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"%!
CHAPTER 1: BARTH’S EARLY WRITING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "&!
The Epistle to the Romans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"'!
The Word of God and the Word of Man !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!%(!
The Göttingen Dogmatics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!##!
Conclusion !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!))!
CHAPTER 2:ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE OPENING OF
CHURCH DOGMATICS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! )'!

Humanity in Barth’s Doctrine of Revelation !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)*!
Humanity in Barth’s Doctrine of God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'$!
Barth’s Anthropology in The Doctrine of Creation !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*%!
Conclusion !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!("!

CHAPTER 3: HUMANITY AS THE CREATURE OF GOD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (#!
Jesus, Humanity for God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!()!
True Humanity !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! """!
Conclusion !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "%'!
CHAPTER 4: BARTH’S CHRISTOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
FOLLOWING §44 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"#+!
Humanity in its Determination as the Covenant-Partner of God !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "#"!
Humanity as Soul and Body!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "#)!
True Humanity as Reconciled Humanity !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "#'!
The Being of Humanity in Jesus Christ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "#*!
The Way of the Son of God into the Far Country and the Human Experience!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ")"!
The Pride of Humankind and the Fall of Humankind !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ")%!
Jesus Christ as Royal Man !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "))!
The Vocation of True Humanity !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ")'!
Conclusion !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ")(!
CHAPTER 5: ANALYSIS: BARTH’S ANTHROPOLOGY FROM THE EPISTLE
TO THE ROMANS TO CHURCH DOGMATICS VOLUME IV !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"&%!
CONCLUSION !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"'$!
Implications !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "'%!
Questions for Further Study !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "*+!
BIBLIOGRAPHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"*$!

INTRODUCTION
Few theological concepts have more pragmatic significance than one’s doctrine of
humanity. A theological anthropology expresses an individual’s understanding of himself
or herself in relation to God. It also gives expression to God as He is in relation to
humanity and to creation. In this, a theological anthropology prioritizes the expression of
God, above an expression of humanity. As such, a theological anthropology expresses an
individual’s understanding of himself or herself in relation to God after it has given
expression to God as He is in relation to His creation, which includes humanity. A
theological anthropology seeks to answer the questions “Who am I?” and “What is my
purpose?” by first answering the question “Who is God?” and “What is His intent for
humanity?”
In opposition to the historical context of twentieth-century human centered
religion, Karl Barth argues for a theologically based anthropology. He fixes human selfknowledge on divine revelation and so constructs his understanding of humanity from
within his Christology, as is found in volume III/2 of his Church Dogmatics.1 Barth’s
proposed description of humankind appears less pessimistic about the state of humanity
when compared to his earlier writings. For example, early on Barth describes humanity as
a riddle,2 existing in a state of Krisis that marks an “infinite qualitative distinction”
between God and humanity.3 This state of Krisis is one wherein “Man cannot escape his

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1

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, trans. G. W. Bromiley, ed. T.F. Torrance (New York: T & T Clark, 2009)
vol. III/2. The Church Dogmatics will be shortened to CD henceforth.
2
Karl Barth, The Word of God & The Word of Man, trans. Douglas Horton (New York: Harper
Torchbooks, 1956), 197.
3
Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, trans. Edwyn Hoskyns (London: Oxford University Press, 1968),
10-11.

1

humanity, and means limitation, finitude, creaturehood, separation from God.”4 By
founding his concept of humanity on the reality of Christ in the CD, Barth is able to avoid
the overly optimistic descriptions of humanity that were evident in the scientific,
philosophical, and theological views of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries.
Many of these perspectives saw religion as a false start for anthropological description or
as the human action of liberation from nature’s blind necessity. By contrast, Barth’s
perspective is able to avoid the pessimism and anthropocentric views of existentialism,
while borrowing the concept of the possibility of being and non-being as the mutually
opposing polarities that mark the human experience and condition.5 At the same time
Barth avoids the overt optimism of his liberal Protestant forbearers. In this Barth is able
to avoid the two pitfalls of overly optimistic and overly pessimistic views of humanity,
all the while taking the phenomenon of the human seriously.
Barth overcomes these two tensions – either to elevate the human over and
against God or to degrade the divinely created human – by deriving his understanding of
humanity from the one figure of Jesus Christ who is both God and human, being “God
for man”6 and “man for God.”7 On the basis of a Christologically centered theological

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4

Barth, Word, 189-190. This proposal will attempt to avoid terms that have come to be regarded as sexist.
Following others in Barth studies, where this can only be done with the use of clumsy circumlocutions and
artificial construction, the English term “man” will be used, with an understanding that this gender specific
term is being used as a translation of the generic German term “Mensch”, see translator’s notes in The
Göttingen Dogmatics, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company,
1991), 69. The Göttingen Dogmatics will be shortened to GD henceforth.
5
Carl Michalson, “What is Existentialism,” in Christianity and the Existentialists (New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1956), 10-11. Barth succeeds in overcoming many of the weaknesses of modern
anthropology and its emphasis on rationality and noetic realities as central features of humanity. In this,
Barth stands along side philosophers such as Martin Heidegger and Ludwig Wittgenstein, in that he does
not make interiority fundamental to what it means to be human. John Webster, Barth’s Moral Theology
(Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998), 42.
6
CD III/2, 218. While the following references are from the 2009 T &T Clark Study Edition, this
document retains the “Black Book” pagination for the sake of standardization within Barth studies.
7
CD III/2, 203.

2

anthropology,8 Barth is able to pronounce that in Jesus “God stands before man and man
stands before God.”9 In light of this reality, Barth states that as Savior, Jesus serves as
real man because “He is the creaturely being who as such not only exists from God and in
God but absolutely for God instead of for Himself.”10 And so, “speaking of this one man
Jesus results in speaking for all men.”11 This is possible for Barth because “the
ontological determination of humanity is grounded in the fact that one man among all
others is the man Jesus.”12 He is, as such, “real” or the authentic form of the human. This
means that the conclusions of autonomous human self-understanding are not necessarily
false, but they cannot offer a full description of humanity.13 As a result of this
relationship between God and humanity, Barth’s concept of Christological anthropology
appears novel within the western Christian tradition,14 offering an alternative to the
concept of fractured, destructive and dying humanity offered by western popular
society.15 As such, Barth’s concept stands as a description of humanity that is both true to
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8

It is significant to note that while there have been many anthropologies that have appealed to the field of
theology, Barth develops a distinct approach, by proposing a theological description of humanity based
upon the person of Christ. In this, theology has traditionally understood the imago Dei in light of the
human, while Barth understands the human, in light of the imago Dei, which is Christ. Barth’s
“theological” anthropology does not simply use theological terms, but first looks to Christ to derive an
understanding of the human. Thus, any attempt to understand anthropology based first upon human
experience is “tantamount to reading a clock backwards.” Archibald Spencer, Clearing a Space for Human
Action (New York: Peter Lang Press, 2003), 179.
9
CD II/2, 94. In light of this reality, Barth’s theological anthropology is a Christological theological
anthropology, as a result this project will refer to Barth’s theological anthropology simply as a
Christological anthropology.
10
CD III/2, 133.
11
CD III/2, 133.
12
CD III/2, 132.
13
CD III/2, 123.
14
While Barth’s Christological anthropology is not singular within the history of theology, as he borrows
heavily from influences such as Athanasius, his application of this concept within the modern theology,
particularly modern Reformed theology, is novel.
15
This may be seen best in the literary work by Douglas Coupland, Life After God (New York: Washington
Square Press, 1994). Charles Taylor acknowledges the continual shortcomings of western society since the
enlightenment to create a human environment for human interaction, a reality that has often been marked
by “orgies of grotesque inhumanity,” a reality that has only becomes more apparent since the earlier

3

the biblical narrative and the theological tradition generally, both within Barth’s specific
Reformed context as well as the greater western Church tradition.
The Scholarly Debate
While anthropology is a significant field of study in theology generally – in its
attempts to answer the question “what does it means to be human?” – Barth’s
understanding of humanity in light of God comes to be the central anthropological
definition, as Michael Parsons points out, there is significant credence to understanding
the whole of Barth’s theology as framed by the dynamics of “Gott-Mensch” or Godhuman antithesis.16
The Catholic theologian and friend of Barth, Hans Urs von Balthasar, has suggested
that there exists a change in Barth’s conception of humanity from his earlier to his later
works. This change, he proposes, is rooted in the move toward a greater focus on
Christology. For von Balthasar, this shift occurs early in the Church Dogmatics, i.e., in
Barth’s transition from speaking of “the Word of God,” to replacing it with the central
concept of “Jesus Christ, God and man.”17 Von Balthasar goes on to suggest that this
movement ultimately marks a transition in how Barth conceives of the human and human
knowledge of God.18 It is this perceived change that allows Emil Brunner to claim that
within the pages of Barth’s Church Dogmatics volume III/2 there exists a theology

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twentieth century. Charles Taylor, Hegel and Modern Society (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1980), 138.
16
Michael Parsons, “Man Encountered by the Command of God: The Ethics of Karl Barth” Vox
Evangelica 17, (1987): 50.
17
Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, trans. Edwards T. Oakes, S. J. (San Francisco:
Ignatius Press, 1992), 115.
18
von Balthasar, Theology, 115.

4

radically different than in earlier work, i.e., that CD III/2 reveals a discontinuity within
Barth’s work. For Brunner, this discontinuity centers on Barth’s concept of humanity.19
The idea of a change to an anthropological centre in Barth’s theology leads many to
misunderstand Barth’s thought. Daniel Price, who perceives a significant shift in Barth’s
concept of anthropology, notes that Barth’s anthropology in CD III/2 “has traveled a long
way from his second edition of the Epistle to the Romans.”20 Many saw Barth’s apparent
change as a turn from dialectical thinking to analogical thinking, a turn that many in
North America labeled as a turn towards a "Neo-Orthodox" position.21 This perceived
change in Barth’s theology marked perceptions of Barth’s theology, particularly in North
America, which were significantly influenced by both von Balthasar’s and Brunner’s
reading of Barth’s work. Such an influence is apparent in Arnold Come’s comment that
Barth’s view of anthropology must be critically guarded against by the preacher for fear
that it “might make all preaching pointless and powerless.”22 As well this perception of a
change in Barth’s theology allows individuals such as Robin Lovin to suggest that in
Barth’s early work the divine “No” of God – God’s condemnation of human action –
“precludes any attempt at moral convictions” within Barth’s theological system.23
However, it must be noted that Archibald Spencer, by using genetic-historical
readings of Barth’s work, reveals that the theologian gave serious attention to the ethical
human reality, the ability of humanity to live in light of God, prior to the CD and that
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19
20

Emil Brunner, “The New Barth,” Scottish Journal of Theology 4, no. 2 (June 1951): 123-124.
Daniel Price, Karl Barth’s Anthropology in Light of Modern Thought (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002),

7.
21

Bruce McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1995), viii.
22
Arnold Come, An Introduction to Barth’s Dogmatics for Preachers (Philadelphia: The Westminster
Press, 1963), 52.
23
Robin Lovin, “Karl Barth: The Ethics of Obedience” in Christian Faith and Public Choices: The Social
Ethics of Barth, Brunner, and Bonhoeffer (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 23.

5

“the root of his doctrine of ‘theoanthroplogy’ can [already] be discovered in germ here in
his early ethical writings.” Spencer is referring to the 1922 article “Das Problem der
Ethik in der Gegenwart.”24 While the Römerbrief is marked by a decided emphasis upon
the “No” of the Krisis inaugurated by God in the world, this does not prevent the “Yes”
of God from appearing, for the “Yes” emerges from the “No.”25 Thus, regardless of this
transition, it is not a surprise to see glimpses of the Christological grounding of
anthropology in Barth’s writing as early as The Epistle to the Romans.26 Spencer’s work
highlights the consistency that exists within Barth’s theology from the very beginning.
McCormack is also very clear in his seminal work that “the ‘turn’ to a ‘neoorthodox’ form of theology which is usually thought to have taken place with the Church
Dogmatics is a chimera. There was no such turn.”27 This current project seeks to examine
and confirm McCormack’s statement in relation to Barth’s anthropology – that, in
Barth’s anthropology from The Epistle to the Romans through to the close of his Church
Dogmatics Barth remains consistent in his Christological grounding of anthropology.
McCormack rightly pushes back against von Balthasar and his perceived turn in Barth’s
theology, which McCormack sees as being rooted in “a decided tendency to give to
methodological questions a prominence that they simply did not have in Barth’s
development when that development is viewed genetically.”28 Yet, in his attempt to
overcome the influence of von Balthasar’s “turn,” McCormack himself overlooks the
significant scholarship that existed previous to his own work, which also perceived and
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24

Spencer, Clearing a Space, 6-7.
Spencer, Clearing a Space, 42.
26
As Spencer points out this continuity between Barth’s anthropological concepts in Romans and that of
CD III/2 means that “the suggestions of a dichotomy between the early dialectical Barth and the later
analogical Barth requires serious reconsideration.” Spencer, Clearing a Space, 7.
27
McCormack, Critically Realistic, vii.
28
McCormack, Critically Realistic, viii.
25

6

supported his general thesis of consistency. McCormack’s work is largely marked by a
refusal of any apparent movement within the large canon of Barth’s work following The
Epistle to the Romans, thus producing a static figure, in which there are no major
changes, yet there is no room for changes in tone, accent of emphasis.
At least as early as 1989, McCormack’s thesis projecting the danger of overlooking
Barth’s consistency, is evident in the work of the British theologian John Colwell.
Colwell aptly perceives the unity within the whole of Barth’s work and the critical
importance that such recognition holds. As Colwell states “When this inherent continuity
of Barth’s theological development is not recognized the degree of change in emphasis
between the writing of Romans and the later volumes of the Church Dogmatics can be
greatly over-estimated.”29
Themes of Barth’s consistency are also apparent as early as 1954 in the writing of
the Dutch theologian G. C. Berkouwer in his understanding of the interconnection of the
negative and positive aspects of Barth’s concept of Krisis. The catastrophe of rejection is
interwoven with the grace of election. Even in this early work, Berkouwer highlights the
need to read Barth’s theology holistically in that it “must from its inception be
characterized as triumphant theology which aims to testify to the overcoming power of
grace.”30 As a result, Berkouwer points out that “we do not find in [Barth’s theology] a
transition from crisis to grace, or from disjunction between God and man to fellowship

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29

John Colwell, Actuality and Provisionality: Eternity and Election in the Theology of Karl Barth
(Edinburgh: Rutherford House Books, 1989), 22.
30
G. C. Berkouwer, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth, trans. Harry Rower (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), 37. Emphasis added.

7

between them, but rather a relationship between these polarities which Barth was
concerned to set forth in varying emphases and accents.”31
The distinguished scholar, as well as translator and editor of Barth’s Church
Dogmatics, T. F. Torrance, also notes the Christological anthropology that is seen in
volume III/2 stands not as an addition to Barth’s earlier works, but as a direct result of the
core of his theology from his early period following his rejection of the liberalism of his
predecessors. In examining Barth’s early theology, Torrance states that there is no “new
Barth” – as suggested by Brunner – instead “the ‘Christian humanism’ of the new man
expounded by Barth in the various parts of his third volume belonged to the very essence
of his main theme.”32
Barth’s consistency in anthropology, that includes the resounding “No” so clear in
The Epistle to the Romans as well as the “Yes” that is so evident in CD III/2, is based
upon Barth’s Christology. As Wolf Krötke points out, for Barth, human existence is
defined by the theological doctrine of the “the en- and anhypostatis of the human nature
of Jesus Christ …. [this view means that] this man only existed at all because God united
himself with him.”33 For Barth this union of God and humanity in the human Jesus Christ
is based upon the doctrine of election. Jesus Christ, being fully human and fully divine, is
elected by God and in this act God elects humanity generally. Verne Fletcher shows, the
Christological election of humanity “does not mean denying man but rather causing him,
in his humanity, to participate in the divine life, by ‘appropriating human nature into the
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31

Berkouwer, Grace, 37.
T. F. Torrance, Karl Barth: An Introduction to His Early Theology 1910-1931 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark,
2000), 23. This quotation, while directly in line with McCormack’s thesis, stands in stark contrast to
McCormack’s accusation that Torrance and others forced the spurious change upon Barth’s theology.
McCormack, Critically Realistic, viii.
33
Wolf Krötke, “Karl Barth’s Anthropology” in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, ed. John
Webster (New York: Cambridge University press, 2007), 163.
32

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unity of His own.’”34 This act of election of the God-man Jesus Christ creates a unique
relationship between God and humanity, in which “the humanity of God englobes [sic]
elected humanity.”35
Barth’s Christocentric concept of anthropology is both historically unique and yet
stands within a long tradition, particularly within Protestant theology, of theological
anthropology that attempts to use Christ as a defining factor in anthropology in the
election of humanity. As Colwell suggests, because Barth uses election as the
Christological determinant of humanity, it means that he stands within a wide tradition
that includes Luther, Calvin, and Arminians alike. However, unlike Luther and the later
Arminians, Barth is able to conceive of humanity without jeopardizing the doctrine of
election itself “in the attempt to remove the blemish of a hidden decree.”36 Barth also
overcomes the perception of election, as associated with traditional Reformed concepts of
election that centre on exactly this secret decree and seemingly, a secret rejection.
Krötke notes that “Barth sets out in an interpretation of the doctrine of election, one
of the most genuine accomplishments of his theological thinking, and at the same time a
place at which essential decisions about the structure of theological anthropology are
taken.”37 Barth’s concept of election means that “In the man Jesus, the eternal triune God
has elected all human beings as His covenant partners in a free act of the overflowing of
his love.”38 As a result of this self-binding of God with humanity, Christians are able to

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34

Verne H. Fletcher, “Barth’s Concept of Co-humanity and the Search for Human Community.” South East
Asia Journal of Theology 9 (July 1967): 42.
35
Fletcher, “Barth’s Concept of Co-humanity and the Search for Human Community.” 43.
36
Colwell, Actuality, 235-236.
37
Krötke, “Karl Barth’s Anthropology”, 163.
38
Krötke, “Karl Barth’s Anthropology”, 163.

9

take history seriously as history comes to be understand as that which takes place must be
understood as being grounded in the eternity of God.39
It is this concept of election that is unique to Barth in modern theology, as it allows
for the freedom of the human to be anchored in the one place in which it is safe from the
subjectivity of humanity – in the humanity of God. This divine source of human freedom
overcomes one of the significant struggles of theological anthropologies — that is the
apparent conflict between divine and human freedom. As Gunton notes, “As Jesus is the
one free creature simply because of his relation to God, so it can be for us.”40
Barth’s Christological anthropology stands within theological scholarship as both
significant and provocative. As Krötke points out, Barth’s Christological anthropology is
at “first glace very provocative … because it does not at first appear to show how it can
be connected with what we already know generally about the human being. And without
such a connection, all statements of theological anthropology are in danger of hanging
isolated in space, simply incomprehensible outside of theological discourse.”41 For this
reason any exploration of Barth’s anthropology must take into account such connections
and thus seek to connect Barth’s theological anthropology with the lived experience of
daily life in order to stand as both comprehensible and significant.
However, it is critical to note that Barth’s Christological anthropology means that
the full divinity of Jesus Christ does not displace His full humanity. Instead both stand
side by side. This relationship allows humanity to truly encounter God. As Cynthia Rigby
shows “Jesus Christ’s humanity reveals the value of all humanity, in all of its varieties
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
39

Krötke, “Karl Barth’s Anthropology”, 163.
Colin Gunton, “The Triune God and the Freedom of the Creature” In Karl Barth: Centenary Essays ed.
S. W. Sykes (Cambridge: Ambridge University Press, 1989), 61.
41
Wolf Krötke, “Karl Barth’s Anthropology”, 158.
40

10

and particularities, because it is manifested in a particular person with particular
characteristics.”42 This reveals the significance of Barth’s theological anthropology
against the backdrop of Enlightenment concepts of humanity that surrounded Barth’s
work. As Joan O’Donovan points out, human identity and freedom are not subjective
realities bound to the person – thus susceptible to sin – but objective realities established
in relationality with God. This is because “Barth does not identify the person with selfdetermining subjectivity, with decision, but with the actuality of God’s decision, made in,
through, and for the sake of his Son.”43 As a result, human actuality “transcends sinful
subjectivity as a divinely given humanity extended to all children of Adam.”44
In light of the above discussion, it may be helpful to highlight the reality that while
Barth’s theology did not experience the radical change proposed by von Balthasar,
Brunner, and others, it must be seen to change in accent, tone, and emphasis – a reality
that must be seen against the radical social, cultural, and theological differences that
existed between the penning of the first edition of The Epistle to the Romans to the close
of Barth’s Church Dogmatics. As a result of this unity of Barth’s work throughout his
career, without uniformity, it is important to take note of the recent words of Hans Vium
Mikkelsen that:
the difference between the early and late Barth expresses a change in
the theological accent. With the help of a highly expressionistic
language the early Barth stresses the gap between God and the
human being. The later Barth emphasizes in his Christology,
especially in the teaching of the atonement in CD IV, how God,

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42

Cynthia Rigby, “The Real Word Really Became Real Flesh: Karl Barth’s Contribution to a Feminist
Incarnational Christology” (PhD diss., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1998), 9-10.
43
Joan O’Donovan, “Man in the Image of God: The Disagreement between Barth and Brunner
Reconsidered,” Scottish Journal of Theology 39 no. 4 (1986): 456.
44
O’Donovan, “Man in the Image of God”, 456.

11

despite this gap, has revealed himself for human beings in the man
Jesus from Nazareth.45
Yet, this change in accent is not a change in substance or grounding. It is in this
understanding of unity within Barth’s work without an enforced, external
uniformity that this project seeks to explore the theological anthropological
concept of Karl Barth.
Research Question
Barth’s Christological description of humanity, as it is described in §44, depicts the
existence of true humanity as it is only made possible and represented by the person of
Jesus Christ, who is simultaneously God for humanity and humanity for God. For Barth,
this is humankind as he or she was created to be. This thesis looks at Barth’s description
of humanity in order to answer the question: Is there a coherent theological treatment of
humanity throughout Barth’s corpus, as it is grounded in the person of Jesus Christ?
Thesis Statement
This thesis seeks to demonstrate a significant consistancy throughout Barth’s
corpus beginning with The Epistle to the Romans, The Göttingen Dogmatics, and The
Word of God and the Word of Man through to his CD, chiefly CD III/2 §44, with regard
to his unique Christological anthropology.46
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45

Hans Vium Mikkelsen, Reconciled Humanity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 25.
While Barth’s lectures contained within The Word of God and the Word of Man span the period
preceding, through, and following Barth’s penning of The Epistle to the Romans, this project will begin
with an examination of The Epistle to the Romans before turning to the content of the lectures within The
Word of God and the Word of Man. This has been done for two particular reasons. The first reason for this
ordering is that much of the content of The Word of God and the Word of Man that is examined in this
thesis is either subsequent or follows after The Epistle to the Romans. Second, The Epistle to the Romans is
the significant and best-known work of Barth’s early career. The theories of von Balthasar and others
discussed above are largely based upon a comparison of The Epistle to the Romans and the later Church
Dogmatics, because of this The Epistle to the Romans is the most significant and well known of the three
early works discussed in this project and thus it deserves pride of place.
46

12

Methodology
This project, building upon the work of Bruce McCormack, will proceed along the
lines of a genetic-historical method, seeking to explore Barth’s writing in its own literary
and cultural context.47 This method seeks to explore the themes of Barth’s theology
within their historical context and throughout the development of the theologian’s work.
Moving forward, I align with Spencer in assuming that “Barth’s break with his liberal
heritage in 1914 constitutes the only fundamental break in his theological
development.”48 As a result, this project will trace Barth’s concept of humanity as it
continues to be developed and expressed throughout his writing career.
Procedure
This project seeks to understand Barth’s writing from within its own context. In
agreement with John Webster, this project acknowledges development throughout
Barth’s writing career, but argues that “the direction of Barth’s later work is present in
nuce”49 as early as the lectures entitled The Word of God and the Word of Man. Thus,
Barth offers a cohesive theological treatment to the concept of humanity throughout his
writing career. In addition, I will offer a definition of “theological anthropology” as well
as a description of the various concepts of anthropology that were present during the
twentieth century and contributed to the worldview from which Barth wrote.
Moving forward, it will be necessary to examine selected writings from Barth’s
career that represent his early concept of anthropology. Therefore, I will look to The
Epistle to the Romans, The Göttingen Dogmatics, and The Word of God and the Word of
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
47

McCormack, Critically Realistic Dialectical, ix.
Spencer, Clearing a Space, 3.
49
Webster, Moral, 30-31.
48

13

Man for this portion of my study. This study will explore Barth’s concept of humanity
within his early theological writing that followed his revolt from his liberal education in
1914 in order to see how these writings avoid the twin pitfalls of optimism and
pessimism. This is significant in that it is widely noted that these writings are marked by
Barth’s concept of “the ‘infinite qualitative distinction’ between time and eternity.”50
This dissention or differentiation is marked by the reality that “God is in heaven, and thou
art on earth,”51 humanity acts as a sort of anti-god, as a foil, against God and being the
opposite of God, as Barth states
the world is the world, in spite of the mercy of God by which it is enveloped and
established. When we tolerate, accept, and affirm ourselves, we affirm the existing
course of the world; and in so doing we do not glorify the omnipotent God, but
confirm the condemnation which has already been pronounced over us, and
establish the justice of the divine wrath.52
This project will also require an examination of various anthropological concepts
that are detailed in key areas of the Church Dogmatics leading up to and following
Barth’s discussion of the Christological concept of humanity that is developed in §44.
Therefore, this study will seek to explore Barth’s concept of Christological anthropology
in the wider enterprise of his Church Dogmatics, including in the areas of creation,
revelation, election, and the tension that exists between theological anthropology53 and
the phenomena of the human, this being humanity as it is experienced.
In order to complete this project, I will examine Barth’s concept of humanity as it is
presented in §44 of his CD. This section of the project will describe the context, content,
and significance of his Christological description of humanity, before concluding with the
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
50

Barth, Romans, 10.
Barth, Romans, 10.
52
Barth, Romans, 84.
53
Anthropology as Barth describes it is a God revealed description of humanity.
51

14

implications for Barth’s theological anthropology throughout his later writing.
Throughout my analysis, I will highlight the contributions that Barth has made to
theological anthropology through his development of the concept of the “real man” in
§44 in order to highlight the significant benefit this doctrinal understanding offers for the
twenty-first century, before finally highlighting any problems that may arise out of this
study with regard to Barth’s Christological description of humanity.
Finally, I will offer a summative comparative analysis to briefly detail my findings.
This comparison will seek to highlight the developments, differences, and the
congruencies within Karl Barth’s anthological concepts throughout the material covered
in this project.
The primary goal of this thesis is to confirm Barth’s use of Christology as the basis
for his understanding of anthropology throughout his career.54 Examining Barth’s
Christological anthropology not only highlights the gift of an extraordinary theologian in
this particular area of study, but it has significant implications for the life of the church
and the individual believer and will be highly beneficial for individuals devoted to
Christian ministry to better understand humanity in light of the person of Jesus Christ.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
54

This thesis project has two closely connected side goals that should occur as a result of this heightened
discussion within the community of Barth scholarship. The first is an elevated awareness of the significant
theological benefits of a Christological anthropology, as seen within the writing of Barth and within the
wider community of theological study. The second is that of pastoral ministry. As G. C. Berkouwer points
out in reference to Barth’s life and works, it is impossible to separate his “pastoral” and “formal” theology.
Berkouwer, Grace, 38.

15

CHAPTER 1: BARTH’S EARLY WRITING
Karl Barth’s theology is often viewed in light of his Epistle to the Romans. Few
other texts have altered the theological landscape since the time of the Reformation and
has been criticized thereafter for its strong views of humanity. Some scholars suggest that
Barth leaves humanity in subjectivity and angst following mighty negations of the divine
“No” of God.55 Others conclude that Barth believes the very image of God is affected by
sin.56 In this interpretation, humanity is utterly ruined by the fall and stands under divine
judgment as rejected.
However, Barth’s early writings as a whole – The Epistle to the Romans, his
collection of essays entitled The Word of God and Word of Man and his posthumously
published first round of dogmatic lectures The Göttingen Dogmatics – propose a theology
of humanity that moves beyond this simple rejection. From 1916 - 1921 Barth succeeded
in radically changing the conversation of Western Protestant theology, particularly with
regard to the concept of theological anthropology. Daniel Price suggests that during this
time Barth called for “a major paradigm shift in theological anthropology: one from
seeing the human being as an individual defined by innate faculties to seeing the person
as a dynamic-interpersonal agent whose faculties arise only as they exist in relation to
others.”57

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
55

Come, Introduction, 154. Loving Faith, 23. As Gerhard Forde states “Unfortunately, most people never
get beyond the might negations [of Romans], and so never saw the light. They read Romans to mean, ‘Turn
out the light, the party’s over.’ However, the message behind it all was really, ‘The light of the coming days
is dawning, the party is about to begin!’ But, as always, perhaps, darkness was preferred to the light—how
does it go? —‘ because their deeds were evil’ (John 3:19)” Gerhard Forde, “Does the Gospel have a
Future? Barth’s Romans Revisited”, Word & World 14, no. 1 (Winter 1994), 74.
56
Price, Anthropology, 117.
57
Price, Barth’s Anthropology, 117.

16

This chapter explores Barth’s theological concept of anthropology as it existed in
the early phase of his career, which followed his rejection of Liberal theology.58 At this
point in time Barth turned to a theology that for him was truly Theo-logy—thoughts and
speech about God, one that took seriously the person and work of God as it was revealed
in the Scriptures. Thus, Barth’s understanding of humanity is not an anthropo-theology,
but a Theo-anthropology.59 It is a concept of humankind that is radically shaped by the
person and work of Christ. The three examples of Barth’s early writings referred to above
are examined in order to comprehend Barth’s theological anthropology and the
Christological realities that define it. Subsequent to his break with liberal theology, Barth
treated anthropology as a consequential doctrine, for which a Christological foundation
was necessary. This decision distanced his concept of humanity from thinkers such as
Friedrich Schleiermacher, who saw anthropology as a natural bridge between theology
and human self-reflection.60
The Epistle to the Romans
The Divine “No”!
Following the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar,61 popular ideas of Barth’s
anthropology continually and solely emphasize the divine “No!” pronounced against
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
58

Torrance, Early Theology, 33. It is this anthropocentric theology that Barth works to rethink throughout
his career, starting with The Epistle to the Romans.
59
In that God is not understood in light of who humanity is, but humanity is understood in light of who
God is. Karl Barth, “Evangelical Theology in the 19th Century” in The Humanity of God, trans. Thomas
Wieser (Louisville: Westerminst John Knox Press, 1960), 11. In this these two terms denote the ordering of
understanding and the epistemological foundation for each worldview. An anthropo-theology, as
expemplified in the work of Schleiermacher, looks first to humanity in order to understand God.
Conversely, a Theo-anthropology first finds meaning in who God has revealed himself to be and then
applies this knowledge to produce a knowledge of humanity.
60
John Webster, “Creation and Humanity,” in Barth (New York: Continuum, 2000), 95.
61
Von Balthasar’s exposition of Barth’s concept of humanity, particularly in the period of The Epistle to
the Romans, suggests that Barth understands humanity as “nothing but a cavity, a minus sign.” von
Balthasar, Karl Barth, 69.

17

humanity by God. This “No” is His condemnation. It is the declaration of humankind’s
inability to gain salvation and thus their ultimate damnation. Critical to hearing Barth
correctly is the recognition of this emphasis as it counters humanity’s optimism regarding
itself, which was particularly strong in the years leading up to the First World War and
Barth’s writing of The Epistle to the Romans. As such, an investigation of Barth’s
concept of humanity must begin here. All of what the theologian has to say about
humanity, particularly in The Epistle to the Romans, is set against the background of this
divine condemnation, by the divine “No” spoken against humanity.
Beginning in the first paragraph of his commentary on Romans, Barth underscores
the sinful reality of humanity,62 which results in the paradox of apostleship, the
contradiction of a man sent by God.63 Barth perceives that all human certainty is cast into
doubt when Paul, the theologian par-excellence, stands outside and below the mission
that he was called to. This image of Paul, the Pharisee of Pharisees, who exists only
because of God’s divine work, shatters all possible concepts that build up the human.64
The image of Paul illustrates how Barth conceives of humanity as a result of the central
theme of his dialectical thinking: the tension between God and man. Bruce McCormack
terms this as Barth’s realdialektik.65 The dynamic between the wholly other God and
temporal humanity results in the “recognition that man is not God.”66

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
62

For Barth, like his predecessor Calvin, sin is to be understood as unfaithfulness. John Calvin, Institutes of
the Christian Religion, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), I, 2, I.
244.
63
Barth, Romans, 27-28.
64
This again echo’s the word of Calvin who states that “He who thinks he has his own righteousness
misunderstands the severity of the law.” Calvin, Institutes, I, 3, XIV, 777.
65
McCormack, Critically Realistic, 18. This realdialektik is the reality of God's simultaneous divine veiling
and unveiling of Himself in human language.
66
Barth, Romans, 150.

18

Barth’s dialectic casts humanity under a shadow of sin in comparison to the
radiance of the Divine. Humanity cannot promote itself or seek justification on its own.
Barth explains that “when we tolerate, accept, and affirm ourselves, we affirm the
existing course of the world; and in so doing we do not glorify the omnipotent God, but
confirm the condemnation which has already been pronounced over us, and established
the justice of the divine wrath.”67 Humanity may have a goodness unto itself; yet, against
the image of God, this human goodness is but darkness in the light of God.68
Barth’s pronouncement of the depravity of humankind is complete. In a manner
that is not unlike the most radical of ultra-reformed minds, Barth considers humanity as
marred by the destruction of sin. The whole of human thought and action fails to exist in
the manner it was created to.69 This conception of humanity’s fallibility, in opposition to
God’s infallibility, as depicted in his “Wholly Other” description, can be seen against the
backdrop of the destructive path that Barth’s mentors followed in their endorsement of
Kaiser Wilhelm II’s “blank cheque” against Serbia. As Barth states in Romans,
all human activity, negative and positive, is radically questionable and insecure. We
must, then, recognize the ambiguity of our ambiguity, the death of our wisdom of
death; we must make it evident that no man, not even the humble, upright, broken
man, has any right-ness; that all the busy deeds of the body must be, not checked,
nor limited, nor directed into a new channel, but, in their full activity—mortified.70
Humanity as a whole acts – as Kaiser Wihelm did by responding to the assassination of
the Archduke of Austria – in arrogance and hubris. This reality of mortification means
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
67

Barth, Romans, 84. In this Barth echo’s the words of John Calvin who state that “we must always return
to this axiom: the wrath of God rest upon all so long as they continue to be sinners.” Calvin, Institutes, I, 3,
XI, 751, emphasis added.
68
For Barth, like Athanasius, true goodness emanates solely from God, thus it is impossible for any sort of
innate goodness to exist outside of God.
69
In this Barth again echoes Calvin who states that truly, they [Calvin’s Roman opponents] should have
understood that men’s whole righteousness, gathered together in one heap, could not make compensation
for a single sin.” Calvin, Institutes, I, 3, XIV, 780.
70
Barth, Romans, 294.

19

that Barth, along with Augustine and the sixteenth-century Reformers, is able to echo the
words of Paul in that “there is none righteous, no, not one.”71 Barth sees this as evident
within the history of humanity.72
This depravity means that humanity is unable, both individually and collectively, to
escape the wrath of God, which is justly poured out because of unjust human action. For
Barth, humanity is unable to act in this world to justify itself, either temporally or
eternally, for “There is no magnificent temporality of this world which can justify men
before God.”73 As a result of this thinking, Barth has been accused of accepting a
nihilism and a degradation of humanity or at least embodied humanity, which Barth
clearly sees: “Men are men, and they belong to the world of men: that which is born of
the flesh is flesh.”74
In Romans, Barth sees the humanity of this world as shattered by the difference that
stands between God and humanity, which affects every aspect of human life. “The man
of this world knows only the groaning of creation and his own groaning.”75 Humanity is
bound to this groaning as long as it fails to turn away from “the vanity of [our] existence
and upon the dialectic of its contrasts, and does not refuse to perceive the relativity and
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
71

Barth, Romans, 86.
For Barth, the Gospel is not simply moral aspirations for humanity, nor is it truth that can be read
alongside other human truth; rather, “it sets a question-mark against all truths.” Barth, Romans, 35. By this
definition, the Gospel calls into question all other knowledge and it stands as the test of all knowledge for
the Christian. Knowledge cannot be affixed to the Gospel, nor can Gospel language be affixed to a concept,
for the Gospel critiques all knowledge and all concepts. Here Barth stands inline with Calvin who states
that “it is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon
God’s face…For we always seem to ourselves righteous and upright and wise and holy—this pride is
innate in all of us—unless by clear proofs we stand convinced of our own unrighteousness, foulness, folly,
and impurity.” Calvin, Institutes, I, 1, I. 37.
73
Barth, Romans, 56.
74
Barth, Romans, 56. Barth’s view of sinful humanity is similar to that of Calvin’s, wherein he “insists that
when man was deprived of the spiritual image, that entailed the corruption of his whole nature, of mind and
all, so that there was nothing in the heart of man but perversity.” T. F. Torrance, Calvin’s Doctrine of Man
(London: Lutterworth Press, 1952), 90.
75
Barth, Romans, 318.
72

20

home-sickness of everything.”76 This relativity and homesickness is not simply
theoretical, but is a real human experience that is “concrete, observable, and tangible.”77
Such vanity, homesickness, and brokenness are most apparent because of the Incarnation
wherein God enters humanity as fully God and fully man. God knows what humanity has
experienced and what it means to be other than under this “No”. As Willie James
Jennings states “because it is God who has entered into the life of the human creature, we
see the absolute depths of human misery.”78
It is important for Barth that this “No”, be grounded in human action or inaction.
The “No” pronounced by God against humanity is because “men fall prey first to
themselves and then to the ‘No-God’. First is heard the promise –ye shall be as God! –
and then men lose the sense for eternity. First mankind is exalted, and then men obscure
the distance between God and man.”79
However, Barth’s concept of the divine “No” is far from the pessimism in which it
is often read. Barth is clear in saying that the “No” has a greater purpose. God’s “No”
stands as “The standard by which men are measured is not of this world. It is eternal, as
God is; it is itself God,”80 and thus His action. This “No” exists within God’s greater
action for humanity, “God seeks continually that men should be open to Him and to Him
only. By dissolving us, He establishes us; by killing us, He gives us life.”81 The distance
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
76

Barth, Romans, 318.
Barth, Romans, 318.
78
Willie James Jennings, “Reclaiming the Creature: Anthropological Vision in the Thought of Athanasius
of Alexandria and Karl Barth” (PhD. diss., Duke University, 1993), 66.
79
Barth, Romans, 44. In this concept of humanity, Barth stands strikingly close to his predecessor Calvin
who conceives of knowing God and being in the image of God as so reciprocally interwoven, that as a
result, human attempts to know God out of one’s own imago dei, resulting in makes one’s self equal to
God, because it means that he is in the imago dei of himself. John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis, trans.
John King, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 99-100.
80
Barth, Romans, 61.
81
Barth, Romans, 61.
77

21

between Barth’s concept of humanity and pessimism or nihilism is apparent when he
states that:
The recognition of the need of the forgiveness of sin has nothing in
common with pessimism, with contrition and the sense of sin, or with the
‘heavy depression’ or the ‘preachers of death’ (Nietzsche); it has no
relation to eastern asceticism contrasted with the merriment of the Greeks.
The need of forgiveness of sin might in fact be regarded as Dionysiac with
enthusiasm, were it not that it can be placed in no such human category.
True negation is directed as much against the denial of this life as it is
again the acceptance of it.82
Barth’s “No” is not an ultimate negation. It is a necessary reality for God’s work: God’s
work is displayed in Christ. It is Christ who, as the fully human man, displays this “No”
most clearly in His crucifixion. It is for this reason that Barth is continually pointing to
Matthias Grünewald’s The Crucifixion83 as it highlights the ultimate expression of the
divine “No” against humanity. Jesus Christ, fully man, crucified. “In the likeness of sincontrolled flesh God sent His son, and thereby – spake the death-sentence over sin in the
midst of the flesh.”84 Barth understood that both the Incarnation and the crucifixion were
critical to the reunion of humanity with God. In the crucifixion Christ destroys the reality
of sin among humanity. “The death of Christ dissolves the fall by bringing into being the
void in which the usurped independence of men can breathe no longer. It digs up the
invisible roots of visible sin, and makes Adam, the man of the ‘No-God’, a thing decayed
and gone.”85
It is here, within the divine “No”, that Barth’s Christological anthropology is
already present. The “No” pronounced against humanity is experienced and personified
in Christ, being fully human, through His death upon the cross. And yet it is not the final
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
82

Barth, Romans, 101.
Matthias Grüwald, Isenheim Altarpiece, 1515, Unterlinden Museum, Alsace, France.
84
Barth, Romans, 280.
85
Barth, Romans, 193.
83

22

word spoken regarding humanity. Already here in Romans, Barth reveals the
Chalcedonian accents in his Christology by explaining, “to be human is to be united to
Christ, then sin cannot be definitive of human beings.”86 Humanity is defined in Christ,
not only in His death, but in both His life and in His resurrection that result from His
Incarnation.
The Divine “Yes” of Christ
For Barth, it is exactly this divine “No” that leads to the divine “Yes”, even in the
period of The Epistle to the Romans. Just as the crucifixion is necessary for the
resurrection, so the “No” must be pronounced against humanity to make way for the
divine “Yes”. The Gospel stands as the “No” against man, but it is also a transition. “The
man who apprehends its meaning is removed from all strife, because he is engaged in a
strife with the whole, even with existence itself.”87 Humanity is able to experience peace
with God by being put into enmity with the fallen reality. Thus, redeemed life exists as a
paradox for the individual. “Men are forgiven by God only when He condemns them; life
rises only from death; the beginning stands at the end and ‘Yes’ proceeds from ‘No’.”88
God’s “No” must be announced so that His “Yes” will have true meaning. Without
the divine condemnation of the Gospel, salvation appears meaningless. This reality is of
utmost importance through the period that surrounded Barth’s early writing. The popular
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
86

Barth, Romans, 102 The Chalcedonain Definition of the Christian faith describes the “Lord Jesus Christ
to be one and the same Son, perfect in divinity and humanity, truly God and truly human, consisting of a
rational soul and a body, being of one substance with the Father in relation to his divinity, and being of one
substance with us in relation to his humanity.” “The Chalcedonian Definition of the Christian (451)” in The
Christian Theology Reader, ed. Alister McGrath, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 281-282. It
is from this definition that Barth propels Barth to see Jesus Christ as clearest description of both God and
humanity. Because Jesus is fully human, He provides to be a window for Barth to the humanity as we were
created to be. While Barth, as previously seen, is influenced by Athanasius, the concept of Christ as being
perfect in humanity, as both the perfect human and the basis for humanity, while being in one substance
with “us”, highlights the influence of Chalcedon upon Barth.
87
Barth, Romans, 35.
88
Barth, Romans, 112

23

optimism surrounding humanity, which would ultimately be shattered by two world wars,
camouflaged the significance of the true optimism of humanity, the divine “Yes,” in the
reality of the hollow human-centered concepts of progress. This perceived human
progress ignored the divine “No” and thus failed to ground human hopes in reality. In
order to understand the splendour of the Christological “Yes”, Barth clears away the
anthropocentric clutter through the use of the divine “No”, spoken to Christ as well as the
whole of humanity. The dialectic between the “No” and the “Yes” of God must be
established in order to be express their true meaning. Once the dialectic is established
between the “No” and the “Yes”, between the “old” and the “new” human, “we can
concentrate our attention on the ‘old’; not, of course, for its own sake – since it does not
exist in itself but only in relation to the pre-eminence of the ‘new’ – but in order that we
may thereby be enabled to decipher the law of the new world.”89 Barth’s expression of
the divine “No” reveals the darkness of human life, but this is not darkness for darkness
sake; it is to fully express the splendour of the light of the divine “Yes.”
For Barth, God’s “No” and “Yes” – both of which are acts of God’s grace – are
bound together; “Men are forgiven by God only when He condemns them; life rises only
from death; the beginning stands at the end, and ‘Yes’ proceeds from ‘No’.”90 Thus the
individual experiences this justification not in the self but in Christ. For this reason Barth
asks “Are ye ignorant that the pre-eminent ‘Yes’ of God refers not to the man as long as
he liveth, not to me, but to the new man who has passed from death to life?”91 Barth is
suggesting that human justification is always guaranteed within the strictest limitation on
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
89

Barth, Romans, 166.
Barth, Romans, 112. The Christological image here cannot be ignored, just as Christ can only rise after
crucifixion, so humanity can only experience the life of forgiveness following the death of condemnation.
91
Barth, Romans, 232.
90

24

human freedom. However, in this limitation humans experience death through Christ,
who has died to the law and set us free. Thus, humanity is joined to and represented in the
humanity of Christ that died on Golgotha.92
This “No” and “Yes” is the Krisis of humanity.93 The realization of one’s situation
within this “Yes” and “No” is a realization of God’s just and grace-filled judgment.
“Through Jesus Christ men are judged by God. This is their K[risis], but it is both
negation and affirmation, both death and life. In Christ there has appeared an end, but
also a beginning, a passing to corruption, but also a becoming new; and both are for the
whole world and for all men.”94 It is this act of judgment that is His mercy.95 Humanity’s
situation must be understood negatively, revealed by God, in order for the mercy of God
to be seen in its full glory, revealing what humanity can become in Christ.
Once this dialectic is understood and seen in Christ, the wonder of the Incarnation
and the resurrection is apparent. For Barth, the resurrection stands as a barrier of human
existence, which becomes the hope of humanity’s existence. This thinking pushes Barth
to state that: “The barrier marks the frontier of a new country, and what dissolves the
whole wisdom of the world also establishes it. Precisely because the ‘No’ of God is allembracing, it is also his ‘Yes’.”96 Because this barrier of life is also a Christological
establishment of life, it becomes the source of human hope; in that “We have therefore, in
the power of God, a look-out, a door, a hope; and even in this world we have the

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
92

Barth, Romans, 232-233.
Krisis is the reality of the “infinite qualitative distinction” between God and humanity. Barth, Romans,
10-11.
94
Barth, Romans, 69.
95
Barth, Romans, 41.
96
Barth, Romans, 38.
93

25

possibility of following the narrow path and of taking each simple little step with a
‘despair which has its own consolation’.”97
God’s pronouncement of reconciliation upon humanity is not a cause for human
pride but rather human humiliation at the recognition of the realdialektik.98 God has
pronounced a “Yes” over humanity in His faithfulness, but it is based upon His “No,”
rather than being based on human pride or human work. Therefore, “this new relation
between God and man can occasion no fresh delusion or deceit, for it is based upon a
criticism so radical as to exclude all human boasting.”99
Barth’s dialectic approach can never be described as a dualism. In response to such
an objection, he explains, when pondering the relationship between the old man under the
divine “No” and the new man who exists under the divine “Yes”
we must not allow ourselves to drift into dualism, as though grace and sin, ‘Yes’
and ‘No’, were simply two contrasted factors. The important characteristic of this
mortal and sinful body is that it has been rendered questionable, assaulted,
overwhelmed, and discovered, by the crucifixion of the old man - that we should no
longer serve sin.100
If a dualism should appear between the old man of Adam and the new man of Christ it is
“not metaphysical but dialectical. The dualism exists only in so far as it dissolves itself. It
is a dualism of one movement, of one apprehension, of one road from here to there.”101 In
this Barth rejects the sort of dualisms that are common within Christian concepts of
anthropology. It is common to separate sinful Adam from the perfect Christ, dividing
humanity—with groups assigning the border between the two in ways that benefit one’s
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
97

Barth, Romans, 38.
realdialektik is the dynamic that exists between the Wholly other God and the temporal humanity
that results in the recognition that God is God and humanity is not. McCormack, Critically Realistic, 18.!
99
Barth, Romans, 126.
100
Barth, Romans, 208.
101
Barth, Romans, 177.
()!This

26

worldview or theological program—creating two distinct classes of humanity. However,
Barth is clear, any separation of humanity into classes or segments across the lines of
Adam and Christ, is a myopic view of humanity that does not take into account the full
reality of humanity.

Humanity United with God
Because of the cataclysmic results of sin, humanity is utterly bereft of an ability to
truly perceive self-understanding. Individuals may be able to view their physicality in a
mirror, but are unable to decipher any sort of real understanding; the ontological reality is
hidden behind a veil. Currently humanity sees only through a glass dimly.102 This haze
means that true anthropological understanding is bound up in knowledge provided by
God, knowledge revealed in Christ. In order to understand oneself, an individual must
search out the knowledge of God, a search that appears to be an impossible task because
of the vast distance between God and humanity—both morally and metaphysically,
However, the Incarnation means that “God must not be sought as though He sat
enthroned upon the summit of religious attainment. He is to be found on the plain where
men suffer and sin.”103
Barth’s Christology must be understood as being directly influenced by the fifth
century Council of Chalcedon in his description of Jesus Christ as both truly God and
truly human. This Chalcedonian character is witnessed in The Epistle to the Romans,
Barth’s understanding of Christ as bringing God into contact with humanity in a way that
provides them with knowledge and reconciliation. Humanity comes to know itself in
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102
103

1 Corinthians 13:12.
Barth, Romans, 132.

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Christ. As fully God, “the life of Jesus is perfected obedience to the will of the faithful
God.”104 As fully man, Jesus “stands among sinners as a sinner; He sets Himself wholly
under the judgment under which the world is set.”105 In consequence, God, as man in
Christ, does the impossible, “He takes His place where God can be present only in
questioning about Him.”106 This means that Christ, through His death on the cross, takes
up the “No” that is pronounced upon humanity by God and in His resurrection shares
God’s “Yes” with humanity.107
A recognition of Christ as truly divine and truly human radically shifts one’s
understanding of humanity as a whole. Humanity is not to be understood as a “fleshly
machine,” a diabolical deceiver, or something to be overcome; instead, as John Webster
rightly points out, “to be human is to be united to Christ.”108 The Incarnation means that
divine understanding of the human being does not exist in an ethereal realm, but in the
here and now of human life.
The Christological Reality of Faith
The “Yes” that God pronounces over the individual is the result of faith and ushers
the believer into a new life, a life as the real man. It is in faith that the dead man becomes
alive in Christ. Having wrath spoken against them, they become alive. “We believers see
the invisible. We see the righteousness of God in His wrath, the risen Christ in the
crucified One, life in death, the ‘Yes’ in the ‘No’.”109 For Barth, the life of faith results in
an apparent paradox that can only be dwelt in by the faithful work of God.
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104

Barth, Romans, 97.
Barth, Romans, 97.
106
Barth, Romans, 97.
107
Barth, Romans, 97.
108
Webster, “Creation,” 99.
109
Barth, Romans, 156. It is important to note that while Barth sees this transition from life to death as
utterly significant and wholly transformative, it is not ultimate. The human who walks his or her own path
105

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Joseph Mangina points out that Barth borrows from his Marburg heritage,
particularly in his early writings, wherein faith is more than simply assent to the Bible or
church doctrine, but rather it involves the whole individual in a life of faith, as a
person.110 The faith that makes this transformation possible is more than a simple human
action. It is more than trust placed in a chair when one is reclining upon it. Faith that
brings the individual into contact with the divine “Yes” is itself rooted in God.
The believer is the man who puts his trust in God, in God Himself, and in God
alone; that is to say, the man who, perceiving the faithfulness of God in the very
fact that He has set us within the realm of that which contradicts the course of this
world, meets the faithfulness of God with a corresponding fidelity, and with God
says ‘nevertheless’ and ‘In spite of this’.111
The human faith that Paul discusses in Romans and that Barth understands as
transformative for humanity is itself rooted in God’s action. Human righteousness, gained
through faith in God, is first based in God’s faithful action. This means that faith itself is
not a human work, faith cannot be accounted as works righteousness. True faith is “faith
which is not a work, not even a negative work; not an achievement, not even the
achievement of humility; not a thing which exists before God and man in its own right.
Faith is the ground, the new order, the light, where boasting ends and the true
righteousness of God beings.”112 This concept of faith means that “whether we say of the
faithfulness of God or ‘of the faith of men’, both are the same.”113
Barth’s concept of faith, even in his early phase of writing, is highly Christological,
for faith is grounded in Christ’s action alone. This is supported by Barth’s understanding
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outside of the path of faith “asks that he may continue in sin and be like God no longer. He is dissolved by
the claim God makes upon him.” Barth, Romans, 193. This dissolution occurs in that such a choice results
in the individual ceasing to be truly human in the face of the true God.
110
Joseph Mangina, Karl Barth on the Christian Life: The Practical Knowledge of God (New York: Peter
Lang Publishing, 2001), 32.
111
Barth, Romans, 39.
112
Barth, Romans, 110.
113
Barth, Romans, 42.

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of the Greek phrase !"#$%&' ()#*+ as a genitive of possession, which means that the faith
that justifies “is grounded upon the faithfulness which abides in Jesus.”114 Right standing
before God is the ability of humanity to stand before God. Righteousness becomes
possible in that “the righteousness of God is manifest through his faithfulness in Jesus
Christ.”115 This means that the very foundation of this new humanity – of the “Yes” of
God in the life of the individual – is Christologically grounded. Faith influences every
aspect of experience and action in this new humanity and it is made possible, exemplified
for, and provided to the individual through the person and work of Jesus Christ, who is
fully God and fully man. Such faith is exemplified in the life of Abraham, who God
encountered and was given faith by God, which “he encountered as divine
righteousness.”116 This transaction is counter to human action and human reality; it is
effective because of its freedom, a freedom that can only exist in the authentic action of
God.
For Barth, to live in faith means to live as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to
God. This act of worship is an act of faith resulting from a realization of the realdialektik,
humanity’s position before God.117 True worship occurs as a result of the subjectivity of
humanity when faced with the certainty of God. Life as a living sacrifice means
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114

Barth, Romans, 104. Barth clearly expresses this in his translation of Romans 3:26. Later in 1956 Barth
states in a lecture entitled “The Humanity of God” that Christ’s faithfulness acts awakens the corresponding
faithfulness of His Partner in humanity, in order that such faith amongst humanity may take place. Karl
Barth, “The Humanity of God” in The Humanity of God, 48. Barth’s view can be seen to stand along side
that of the more recent N. T. Wright Justification (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2009), 117, as well as
James Dunn, Romans 1-8, Word Biblical Commentary 38a (Dallas: Word Books, 1988), 43-44. For a more
full discussion see Richard Hays The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:14:11, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmands, 2002), 249-97.
115
Barth, Romans, 94.
116
Barth, Romans, 121.
117
In light of this, Barth’s concept of faith appears remarkably different than the isolationist concept of
faith seen in the writing of Søren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard understands that true faith is always “absolute
isolation.” Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, trans Alastair Hannay (Toronto: Penguin Books,
1985), 106. By contrast, Barth understands faith to be absolute dependence on and relationality with God.

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surrender; it means an unconditional gift; it means the renunciation of men in
favour of God. If men are themselves the object to be surrendered, renounced, and
given up, their sacrifice can mean nothing less than the relentless acknowledgement
of that questionableness and confiscation which occurs when they are confronted
by the unfathomable God.118
This faith is unlike any human reality. The faith that is provided by Christ can only be
seen as Christ’s, given to humanity, in that “He provides faith with content which is not a
thing in time; if it were a thing, it would be nothing but a void and a negation. He is the
miraculous factor in faith, its beginning and its end.”119 This faith is a possibility because
of Barth’s Chalcedonian Christology. The two natures of Christ mean that while Jesus is
“equal with God, and on His account God reckons righteousness to the believer .... He is
the subject of faith, which ‘religious experience’ [human action] reaches after and longs
for, but never finds.”120 Because Jesus is both fully God and fully human, He can stand as
both the subject and object of this faith, faith that is true because of its divine origin but
expressed in humanity.
True Humanity’s Identity and Reality
When humanity encounters the reality of faith, the result is a radical transformation
because of the encounter in Christ. This Christological encounter is unlike any human
experience, either within human contact or via contact with the rest of creation. Humanity
elected by God means that humanity is bounded by Christ.121 Barth suggests that this
encounter with Christ, who is the “miraculous factor in faith,”122 causes the individual to
produce true beauty, “as a tumbler sings when it is touched, so we and our world are
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118

Barth, Romans, 431.
Barth, Romans, 158.
120
Barth, Romans, 158. While the emphasis of Christ as the existence of goodness among humanity is
certainly a result of an Alexandrian influence upon Barth, largely through Athanasius, here the impact of
the Chalcedonian definition of the Christian faith is apparent in its statement that the Son is “perfect in
divinity and humanity.” McGrath, 281.
121
Fletcher, “Barth’s Concept of Co-humanity and the Search for Human Community”, 43.
122
Barth, Romans, 157.
119

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touched in faith by the Spirit of God.”123 God’s transformative work and subsequent
renewal cannot be the result of a noetic acquisition, a change in lifestyle, or an increased
moralism. Humanity, individually or collectively, cannot bring about this encounter with
faith. It is only Christ’s own work that stands as true faith. Humanity cannot improve
itself in order to become Christ-like; it cannot follow Christ to exalt its being or transform
its nature, Christ alone brings about a different humanity. Barth explains “when [Christ]
is brought into the picture, it is discovered that we cannot introduce Him thus, either by
bringing Him down, or by bringing Him up. For Christ is not the exalted and transformed
ideal man. He is the new man.”124 Therefore, the individual who has experienced this
transformation and continues to experience it cannot confuse the source and location of
this justification. “The man who loves God can never ask ‘Is it I?’ or ‘Is it Thou?’ Such
questions are relevant only in the context at which the Apostles formulated them at the
Last Supper. The Lord knoweth His own. He knows the prisoner to be free, the sinner
righteous, the damned blessed, and the dead alive.”125
The work of God is always found completely in God, and yet humanity stands
within a paradox. While Paul is a new man, he cannot be separated from the man he was.
Paul has been transformed, yet paradoxically, Saul continues to stand behind him. The
sinner has been made righteous, but he remains a sinner, who has been redeemed and
made righteous. Hans Vium Mikkelsen suggests that the new man “is the human being
who is not first and foremost looked upon as a sinner, but who is first and foremost

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123

Barth, Romans, 157.
Barth, Romans, 378.
125
Barth, Romans, 324.
124

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looked upon as a redeemed sinner.”126 Thus, the reconciled human exists in paradox,
experiencing life as simul iustus et Peccator.127
While faith works to re-new humanity – creating reconciled sinners – it is
impossible to by-pass the reality that humanity, even the individual bounded by Christ,
may exist as a reconciled sinner, but remains a sinner. This is the great tension of the
Christian life. Grace may bring humanity to an end, but this end lacks finality. Barth
explains that,
We cannot, if we are honest, describe this conflict as the victory of grace. At best,
the truth of God and the truth of sin are ever balanced against one another as ‘Yes’
and ‘No’. But this is no radical transformation of human existence from life to
death and from death to life; and in this experience of conflict we are not
existentially at God’s disposal; for the reality of God still remains something which
is distinct from the reality of human lusts.128
While this sinfulness continues to exist alongside the transformed life, it must be
“recognized as the relativity of this life.”129 The life of the new human encounters the
mortal body “as existence encounters non-existence.”130 The truly human being stands in
the light of Christ and is constituted in a new subject and forms a new predicate.131
However, this clear “Yes” also contains a “No.” Christ’s action of drawing humanity near
is dialectical in that “by his blood we are justified; as enemies we are reconciled to God
through the death of his Son.”132
Faith in Christ transforms the individual, who becomes the new man, and yet man
remains the old man. Reconciled humanity experiences the true transformative power of
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126

Mikkelsen, Reconciled, 123.
Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms (Grand Rapids: Baker Book
House, 1985), 283.
128
Barth, Romans, 212-213.
129
Barth, Romans, 210.
130
Barth, Romans, 210.
131
Barth, Romans, 164.
132
Barth, Romans, 164.
127

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the gospel “now,” while also waiting for the death of un-reconciled humanity in the “Not
Yet” of Christ. The reconciled individual exists today, but “the old man is also mankind,
humanity, and the world of men. Each particular man is therefore doubly conditioned. He
is conditioned, on the one hand by that which dissolves his particularity, and on the other,
by that which affirms it.”133 Faith creates a new person who at the same time exists in a
state as they were before faith. The former self denies true reality while the new self
affirms the true reality of the created individual.
In this dialectical reality between the old man and the new man, Barth sees hope for
the future in God’s righteousness. However, it is not a hope based in human action or on
human possibility, but in the full realization of the righteousness of God. For Barth, this
means it is a future reality as opposed to a future possibility. The full transformation is a
present reality to God, but a future reality for humankind. Thus, “the Messiah is the end
of mankind, and here also God is found faithful. On the day when mankind is dissolved,
the new era of the righteousness of God will be inaugurated.”134 Barth speaks
dialectically even here of Christ, the Messiah, who is the end of humankind. Christ has
marked the end of humanity, but the realization of this reality is yet to occur. This means
that humanity has experienced renewal and is fully enveloped by Christ in time. Christ
defines the new current reality for humankind, for they are a new creation, while already
having their telos established.
Humanity in Christ Alone
Throughout his Epistle to the Romans, Barth clearly argues that it is by Christ that
humanity gains true theological and anthropological understanding. Christ is fully God
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133
134

Barth, Romans, 164
Barth, Romans, 97.

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and fully man. Jesus Christ enables humanity to participate in divine grace,135 to be
renewed and reconciled. In Christ, through faith, humanity is cast in a new light, the light
of “new man,” which re-instates the beauty and creatureliness of humanity, redefining
human relation and human-divine relation. The restoration of relationships is made
possible because Christ restores the human-divine relationship. This existence has been
the goal that humanity has sought after in various efforts, yet it is in Christ and Christ
alone that these possibilities become realities.136 Barth concludes that “God is true: He is
the Answer, the Helper, the Judge, and the Redeemer; not man, whether from the East or
from the West, whether of Nordic stock or of biblical outlook; not the pious nor the hero
nor the sage; not the pacifist, nor the man of action; not even the Superman — but God
alone, and God Himself!”137 God is the only source of true human fulfillment.
Freedom of the Christological Human
The Christological reality of humanity as discussed thus far creates a distinct
freedom that is available to the individual through their connection with Christ. This
freedom is possible because of Christ’s two natures. Jesus Christ exists in divine freedom
because of His divine nature and is able to communicate and confer this upon humanity
because of His humanity. Humanity can only experience its true nature in coming to
terms with their creatureliness and responding to it. Nigel Biggar points out that “actual,
sinful humankind ... contradicts real humanity. By aspiring to either the autarkic or the

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135

Barth, Romans, 220.
In this Barth rebukes the seventeenth-century humanist thinking of Hugo Grotius and John Lock, which
has been immensely influential throughout Western society. Following Grotius the West has often seen
“Human beings [as] rational, sociable agents who are meant to collaborate in peace to their mutual benefit.”
Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge MA: Belknap Press, 2007), 159.
137
Barth, Romans, 80.
136

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autonomous forms of moral mastery, they defy their creatureliness, turning away from
responsibility to the Creator and so closing their ears to the Word of God.”138
Barth’s perception of human freedom, wherein one has a divine causality, is
discomforting to individuals in the third millennium. For all the lip service to postmodern and post-liberal thought, popular concepts of freedom remain staunchly modern.
Biggar points out that Barth’s concept of freedom is best understood in line with Stephen
Clark’s assault of the “liberal” notion of freedom,139 which suggests that it is “the
freedom to choose from a position of spiritual neutrality … [and] Barth’s point is the
same: apart from subordination to God, the human creature is oppressed by the ‘lordless
powers.’”140
For Barth, true freedom is divinely possible. This freedom is not only a possible
reality of this renewed human life, it is the essential meaning of it.141 This freedom is first
and foremost found in the pleasure of God. In addition, it can have no other foundation,
after all “It is the freedom of the will of God in men.”142 Like Rousseau, Barth views this
freedom as the natural state of humanity; however, unlike enlightenment thinking, this
freedom is not sourced within humanity, but in God. Barth makes this distinction clearly
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138

Nigel Biggar, The Hastening that Waits (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 10.
Clark, among others, chastises modern liberalism’s concept of freedom based upon an independent Ego
or I. For Clark, the Ego cannot exist without a relationship to the other, thus freedom cannot exist outside
of a relationship with and dependence upon the other. Thus, liberal freedom strains and denies human
reality and human relationality. Pragmatically, liberty ultimately devolves into totalitarianism. As the
sociologist David Martin points out “The theme of individualism, (or individuality), and the collective, (or
the communal), encounters paradoxes plaguing all our visions of political promise. To the extent that power
is devolved downward to individuals or community it reproduces and reinforces the existing pattern of
difference and privilege, whereas to the extent it is concentrated upward in the market or the state it creates
over mighty and potentially corrupt ‘masters of the universe. Paradigmatically all power to the people ends
up with all power to Kim Jung Il, while the invocation of the freedom of the market ends up with all power
to Bernard Madoff. To quote Scripture ‘their end is destruction’.” David Martin, The Future of Christianity
(Surrey: Ashgate, 2011), 45.
140
Biggar, The Hastening, 4-5.
141
Barth, Romans, 504.
142
Barth, Romans, 220.
139

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in suggesting that “The freedom of God confronts men neither as a mechanism imposed
upon them from outside nor as their active and creative life. The freedom of God is the
pure and primal Origin of men: the Light, the presence of absence of which renders their
eyes brightness or darkness — the Infinite, by the twofold measurement of which they
are great or little — the Decision, by which they stand or fall.”143 As such, freedom is the
mark of the renewed life and to stand outside of this divine freedom or refuse this divine
freedom means to refuse to exist in new life and thus to remain as the old, sinful man, the
man condemned to death.
The Christian Life
Already in Barth’s famed 1921 commentary on Paul’s letter to the church in Rome,
he exhibits a Christological understanding of anthropology. While the accent of Barth’s
theology changes throughout his writing career, the emphasis upon incarnational
Christology that Bruce McCormack preserves as appearing after the period of Barth’s
two commentaries on Romans has already taken root, particularly in relationship to
humanity. In The Epistle to the Romans Barth perceives humanity as a result of its sinful
denial of its reality before God. Humanity is condemned before God. Yet, through the
union of God and humanity in Christ Jesus, God takes this “No” upon Himself and gives
His divine “Yes” to humanity. For Barth, this interaction means that humanity – through
faith provided and made real in Christ – is able to encounter a new life that is reconciled.
It is the life lived in and through Christ. Therefore, the Christian life and the freedom
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143

Barth, Romans, 355. This concept of freedom is extremely foreign to many who have been so deeply
ingrained with modern liberal concepts, raising concerns about “forced freedom” or “God controlled
freedom”, as if such a concept of freedom is a denial of actual freedom. However, freedom should not be
confused with independence. It is here that Barth’s concept of freedom is congruent with Vernard Eller
when he states that “God’s arky, his will for us, is never anything extraneous to ourselves but precisely that
which is most germane to our true destiny and being .... Rather than a heteronomous imposition, God’s
arky spells the discovery of that which is true to myself and my world.” Vernard Eller, Christian Anarchy:
Jesus’ Primacy over the Powers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 3.

37

offered to humanity already appears in stark contrast to the Pelagian concept of human
freedom that leaves humanity as a willing machine.144 Echoing Paul’s words, Barth
explains that this life can only be “Christ who lives in me.”145
Summary
The concept of humanity, as it is expressed in Barth’s early work The Epistle to the
Romans, stands against anthropocentric action and instead exposits the condemnation of
human action for the purpose of viewing it in light of the person and work of God. Even
at this early stage in Barth’s writing career, the divine “No” stands as the establishment of
a theological understanding of humanity. Even here in Romans, Barth affirms the
possibility and actuality of an authentic, objective knowledge of humanity, only as it is
subsequent to the knowledge of God.146 Even here in The Epistle to the Romans Barth
outlines the Christological reality of true humanity. It is first revealed by humanity’s
condemnation, but continues to reveal the in truly human reality of the faithful Jesus
Christ, the possibility of truly human life through faithful living in the faithfulness of
Christ, and the resulting freedom. For Barth, like the earlier Augustine,147 the self and
humanity is created and re-formed by Christ.148

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144

Gunton, “The Triune God and the Freedom of the Creature” in Barth, 49.
Galatians 2:20 (NRSV).
146
Colwell, Actuality and Provisionality, 19.
147
At least according to Matthew Drever’s reading of Augustine. For Augustine, “the self is first created
and then re-formed by Christ …. the authentic self is not the self in full possession, power and knowledge
of itself, but the self created in the image of the Trinity, possessed by God, and empowered through
Christ.” Matthew Drever, “The Self Before God? Rethinking Augustine’s Trinitarian Thought” Harvard
Theological Review 100, no. 2 (April 2007): 235.
148
For Augustine, humanity is created in the image of the Trinity, where Barth understands Christ as the
image that humanity is created in. Drever, 235.
145

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The Word of God and the Word of Man
The Word of God and the Word of Man is a compilation of speeches presented
between 1916 and 1932. The collection covers the period of time preceding Barth’s first
edition of The Epistle to the Romans. During this time, Barth also served as a pastor in
Safenwil, up to his professorships in Göttingen, Münster, and Bonn. As such, this work
provides an integral aspect to the development of Barth’s thought. Barth himself admits
that “as the reader takes his way between the first and last of these addresses he will find
the landscape changing.”149 Changes are present in style, ideas and material, but the
theological foundation does not change. Barth’s framework continues to be based upon
the realdialektik, the reality that is revealed between God and humanity in Christ. This
consistent questioning of human self-knowledge is nowhere more apparent than in
Barth’s developing concept of theological anthropology.
The Problem of Humanity
Already in 1916 Barth saw the failure of the Cartesian worldview, wherein
humanity was understood to be self reflective and able to discern truth about itself, able
to diagnose its collective limitations, and create solutions. At this point, Barth perceives
an anxiety that humans experience because of their disconnect from God. This anxiety
does not allow the human to reach outside of itself beyond the apprehension it feels, to
ground its knowledge upon the knowledge provided by God. Instead, as fallen humanity,
“we come to our own rescue and build the tower of Babel.”150
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149
150

Karl Barth, Introduction to Word, 7.
Barth, “The Righteousness of God,” in Word, 14.

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In this early phase of his writing career, Barth believes that humanity stands in
tragic error that fundamentally defines humanity. Humanity longs for truth and
righteousness that can only be found in God. While humanity searches for this truth, “we
do not let it enter our lives and our world — we cannot let it enter because the entrance
has long since been obstructed. We know what the one thing needful for us really is, but
long ago we set it aside or put it off till later ‘better times—in the meanwhile make
ourselves sicker and sicker with substitutes’.”151 God stands near to humankind providing
a way to true humanity, but its sickness, its experience, causes it to be fearful.152 Thus the
problem of human sinfulness is not distance between God and humanity, but a problem
of pride in which humanity is unwilling and unable to rely upon God to mend this gulf.
For Barth, humanity stands as a question. Therefore, an explanation of what is
humanity can only be available in humanity, yet it is removed from humanity’s reach.
The very place that humanity must look to find self-understanding is the place that its
understanding is the most uncertain. In order to answer this question humans do “not cry
for solutions but salvation; not for something human, but for God, for God as [their]
Saviour from humanity.”153 The answer to the question of humanity can only be Christ.
Any other answer, any other attempt to answer the question of humanity that does not
have the perspective of God and humanity is less than complete. Any answer that lacks
the full scope of humanity is not an answer at all. While humanity may hold a certainty, a
possibility, and reality of knowledge, even self-knowledge, all such certainty and
knowledge is eviscerated in the face of God’s truth. “When God is present we cannot

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151

Barth, “The Righteousness of God,” in Word, 15.
Barth, “The Righteousness of God,” in Word, 16-17.
153
Barth, “The Word of God and the Task of the Ministry,” in Word, 190.
152

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longer maintain the balance of our certain creature-hood; we can no longer appeal to
‘reality’ when reality is bursting forth from ‘reality’.”154 !
The Transformation of Humanity
Humanity finds itself under condemnation, under the divine “No” of God.
Humanity is unable to grow past or ignore this reality. The question that faces humanity
is one of change or transition. How does humanity move from death to life? Who is bold
enough and omniscient enough to resolve the difficulty from a height above the “Yes”
and the “No?”155 Such questions imply an answer. It is only God who stands above
humanity’s reality, able to move its existence from one of death to one of life. Such a
transformation is possible because of the work of Christ, who has experienced both the
“No” and “Yes”, death and life. For this reason, God — through Christ — is able to share
this reality with humanity.
“The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the power which moves both the
world and us, because it is the appearance in our corporeality of a totaliter aliter
constituted corporeality.”156 The union of divinity and resurrected humanity means that
Christ provides the means and the mode of the life that humanity was created for. At this
point in Barth’s thinking, Christ brings humanity to encounter the Wholly Other in a way
that had never been experienced since the fall. The Wholly Other stands not as a judge
casting doubt on humankind but as a life giving reality within it.
While the union of God and humanity is unique, this life giving reality is not
something that God brings into humanity from outside, nor is it something that has never
been experienced before or an aspect that humanity was not intended to experience. “The
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154

Barth, “The Christian’s Place in Society,” in Word, 318.
Barth, “The Problem of Ethics Today,” in Word, 151.
156
Barth, “The Christian’s Place in Society,” in Word, 323.
155

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new life revealed in Jesus is not a new form of godliness,”157 but it is a form of humanity
that had long since been forgotten. It is for this reason that Paul and John “are interested
not in the personal life of the so-called historical Jesus but only in his resurrection.”158
For Barth – particularly in this early phase of his writing, even more so within the context
of his Pre-Romans work – the resurrection is viewed as a chief description of
humanity.159 It is the resurrected Christ that becomes, enables, and portrays humanity as
it was created to be. Thus, the resurrected life is the truly human life, as it is the life of
one man, Jesus Christ. “Resurrection is the one experience of man …. Actual experience
begins where our alleged experience ceases, in the crisis of our experiences, in the fear of
God.”160 This means that the experience of truly human life is limited to the life of Christ.
Such a limitation appears to be a blockade, mitigating the possibility of this human
experience to the God-man Jesus Christ. True life is not the experience of the Christians,
but the Christian. “Not the multitude of the baptized, nor the chosen few who are
concerned with Religion and Social Relations, nor even the cream of the noblest and
most devoted Christians we might think of: the Christian is the Christ.”161 Christ may
have renewed humanity, but this renewed man at first appears to be locked in the
particular person of Jesus of Nazareth.
Humanity, however, is not separated from the human. Christ is united to man
through faith. There is the reality of “Christ in us”. Christ unites with humanity creating
the possibility of true life for all. Contact with the resurrected Lord changes the
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157

Barth, “The Christian’s Place in Society,” in Word, 285-286. As Archibald Spencer notes, it is here in
the essays “The Righteousness of God” and “The Christian’s Place in Society” that Barth develops a
Christological grounding for human agency that finds a distant echo in Church Dogmatics III/2. Spencer,
Clearing a Space, 122.
158
Barth, “The Christian’s Place in Society,” in Word, 286.
159
This is contrary to Ritschlian modes of thought that emphasised the “Historical Jesus”.
160
Barth, “Biblical Questions, Insights, and Vistas,” in Word, 94.
161
Barth, “The Christian’s Place in Society,” in Word, 273.

42

individual by providing a perspective on human life that otherwise is out of reach. This
enveloping of humanity means that “there is in us, over us, behind us, and beyond us a
consciousness of the meaning of life, a memory of our own origin, a turning to the Lord
of the universe, a critical “No” and a creative “Yes” in regard to all the content of our
thought, a facing away from the old and toward the new age – whose sign and fulfillment
is the cross.”162 “Christ in us” means that humanity stands not on the outside, devoid of
meaning, but that Christ works to bring humanity into contact with true life, through His
life. Sin is a human reality, but sin means that justification is possible through Christ.163
Summary,
Even in this early stage of thinking, Barth sees that only a Christological
conception of humanity, a concept of sinful humanity redeemed through the person and
work of Christ, is able to take seriously both the reviled and redeemed aspects of
humanity. Barth sees this Christological conception of humanity as avoiding the extremes
of both optimistic and pessimistic anthropological concepts. It is his Christological
anthropology that is able to withstand the short sightedness of optimistic progress, as seen
in the work of Friedrich Naumann. Barth saw Naumann’s approach as a wild goose chase
ending in madness. Barth’s Christological anthropology was also able to stand up against
the nihilistic views of humanity that emphasized damnation and failure and reduced
humanity to ad absurdum.164
The essays in The Word of God and The Word of Man are clearly developed from
the realdialektik between God and humanity. As a result, Barth develops various aspects
of his concept of humanity, which continually develops against the backdrop of God and
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162

Barth, “The Christian’s Place in Society,” in Word, 274.
Barth, “The Problem of Ethics today,” in Word, 172.
164
Barth, “The Christian’s Place in Society,” in Word, 324.
163

43

man. It is because of Christ that humanity stands condemned and with the possibility of a
transformed life simultaneously. The common voice of the speeches tells of true
humanity as christologically shaped. Therefore, true humanity in The Word of God and
The Word of Man can only be a christological humanity.
The Göttingen Dogmatics
The Göttingen Dogmatics is a significant document in evaluating and exploring the
development of Barth’s writing. Published posthumously, this incomplete piece stands as
Barth’s first attempt at dogmatic exploration, which began while he served in his first
Professorial appointment at Göttingen. The Göttingen Dogmatics is the mid-way point
between Barth’s thought within The Epistle To The Romans and the later Church
Dogmatics. As such, it reveals alternative emphasis165 and developments, but ultimately
congruencies throughout Barth’s career.
The Göttingen Dogmatics demonstrates both developments and congruencies in
Barth’s theological concept of humanity in comparison with both The Epistle to the
Romans and the later Church Dogmatics. Daniel Migliore points out in the English
introduction to this work that “There are two notable differences between the Göttingen
Dogmatics and the Church Dogmatics in the doctrine of humanity,”166 yet neither of
these two significantly impact Barth’s definition of humanity, but instead reveal changes
in the expression of Barth’s core definition of humanity. First, The Göttingen Dogmatics
lacks a discussion of the creation of male and female, as seen in the later Church

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165

This is due largely to the different nature of the document as lectures in dogmatic theology.
Daniel Migliore, “Karl Barth’s First Lectures in Dogmatics: Instruction in the Christian Religion,” in
Barth, GD, XLVII.
166

44

Dogmatics. Second, Barth, in line with The Epistle to the Romans puts primacy upon
fallen humanity before discussing true humanity.167
The State of Humanity
Throughout The Göttingen Dogmatics Barth affirms Immanuel Kant’s assertion
that direct knowledge is impossible, particularly direct knowledge of God. This impairs
humanity’s ability to know itself. True self-perception is a human impossibility. Barth
states that the problem of humanity is the impossibility of human perception of the other.
Humanity cannot recognize truth within someone outside of itself. Objective
comprehension is the goal of human relationship, yet there exists an ambiguity within the
relationship. It is this that is for Barth the problem of man.168
Humanity, as it is perceived apart from God, stands as a problem, as a contradiction
even. The problem is that an anthropology without revelation is only a description of
humanity without a true knowledge of humanity. This problem means that anthropology
that does not stand in light of two necessary realities, first the condemnation of God’s
judgment and then the justifying work of God’s salvation, fails to be accurate. “God’s
revelation ... is the answer to our question how we can overcome the contradiction in our
existence, which we have to view not as our destiny but as our responsible act, and which
we know that we cannot overcome. But we know ourselves in this regard only as God
makes himself known to us. We would not ask about God had not God already answered

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167

Migliore, “Karl Barth’s First Lectures,” in Barth, GD, XLVII-XLVIII. While it is noted that the chapter
within The Göttingen Dogmatics that focuses upon anthropology falls into the second volume, a volume
that has yet to be published in English, the content of the first volume provides significant information
regarding Barth’s concept of humanity at this phase, particularly §6 “Man and His Question”. Barth states
that this paragraph deal a priori with what he will deal with a posteriori in volume II. Barth, GD, 69-70.
168
Cf. Barth, GD, 136-137.

45

us.”169 This means that humanity cannot know the truth of God or of itself without God’s
revelation. However with revelation, which is the second reality, God provides a true
image of humanity, as it is and as it has been created to be.
This true, God-given, anthropological knowledge is both a result of and the solution
to the problem of humanity. The anthropological knowledge provided by God is the
result of “God’s revealing of himself to man, His making Himself known out of His
hiddenness, presupposes that man is separated from God but should not be so, revelation
being a repairing of the damage [of sin].”170 God is able to do this, to provide humanity
with self-knowledge, because of His ability to penetrate the other, to objectively perceive
the other, and to do it unimpeded by sin. God knows humanity because of Christ’s human
existence, thus he not only stands above humanity, perceiving it in macro, but stands as
humanity, perceiving it in micro. Christ perceives humanity as both subject and object.
It is this understanding of the subjective nature of human knowledge that Barth
accuses modern theology for failing to perceive. Barth explains, “the bad thing about the
modern theology of experience is that it builds its certainty about God upon something
that is given in the human subject when the only thing that is given in this subject, even
in the believer, is the question.”171 Therefore, Barth concludes that humanity cannot
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
169

Barth, GD, 69. In this he echoes John Calvin, of whom Barth always saw as a theological father, when
Calvin binds the knowledge of God and knowledge self together. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian
Religion, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006) I,1,I, 35, I,1,XV, 183.
For Calvin “Man can have true self-knowledge only when he knows God truly, and when in knowing God
he so images Him as to be what he was made by God to be.” Torrance, Calvin’s Doctrine of Man, 14. This
reality exists for Calvin because “we always seem to ourselves righteous and upright and wise and holy –
this pride is innate in all of us—unless by clear proofs we stand convinced of our own unrighteousness,
foulness, folly and impurity.” Calvin, Institutes I,1,I, 37.
170
Barth, GD, 72.
171
Barth, GD, 67. Barth perceives this tendency within modern theology as the bases for Feuerbach’s
Epithet that the secret of theology is that it is anthropology. Karl Barth, Introduction to The Essence of
Christianity, by Ludwig Feuerbach, trans George Eliot (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1957), xxiv. This
inversion is thus radicalized in the post-humanistic a/theology that perceives that the death of God, which is

46

perceive truth about God or humanity without a special divine work. Instead “to be real,
our certainty about God must always lie in God’s hands.”172
God reveals truth regarding humanity; this means that God provides an accurate
anthropological description in His revelation. God answers humanity’s question of “Who
am I?” in His revelation, answering humanity’s problem. And yet Barth is quick to point
out that “the revelation of this God, as his answer to pilgrim man, cannot be confused or
mixed with man’s question, because no matter in which person [of the Trinity] he reveals
himself, in virtue of the unity of his three persons he escapes every attempt of man to
identify him with himself.”173 While Christ is both fully God and fully man and
communicates truth about God and humanity to humankind, Christ’s divinity can never
be equated with His humanity. God’s revelation remains mysterious to humanity. The
question may be answered, but the human question cannot be confused with God’s divine
answer. Barth recognizes the danger of such an equation and suggests that it leads toward
the annihilation of both God and man.174
Barth suggests that there are many aspects that form the human experience.
Humanity may be marked by bourgeois class, a desire for peace and security, a
proletarian impulse for justice against the capital class or for privacy, for political,
economic, and ecological sustainability, yet none of these realities are truly human. Any
human aspect may be understood to define humanity, but these do not mark true
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made possible in this inversion of anthropology and theology, is “at the same time the death of the self.”
Mark C. Taylor, Erring: A Postmodern A/theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 20.
172
Barth, GD, 67.
173
Barth, GD, 96.
174
This is exemplified in the work of Mark C. Taylor. Taylor suggests that such an equation creates an
imitatio Christi. Therefore, “the self is actually an image of an image, an imitation of an imitation, a
representation of the a representation, a sign of a sign. By becoming a copy of a copy, the self
paradoxically becomes itself.” Taylor, Erring, 40. It is this sign of a sign that ultimately will lead Taylor to
the utter deconstruction of humanity.

47

humanity, nor do they create true humanity. “People are all these things” after all, “but
not the human in them.”175
The Dialectic Reality of Humanity
For Barth, the revelation of God provides a dramatic alteration in human selfperception. Upon encountering revelation, Barth suggests that “we are forced to say that
we may not and cannot understand him except in relation to God.”176 It is only in God’s
revelation that humanity can perceive a true anthropology, an anthropology that is shaped
first and foremost by theology.177 It is only in a theological definition of anthropology
that one is able to perceive humanity as both sinner and saint, as both fallen and justified.
Yet this understanding is available only in and through God’s revelation, outside of
which humanity is continually framed in either overly optimistic or pessimistic terms.
Each of these frameworks fails to take seriously an aspect of human reality. Humanity
“stands between Scylla and Charybdis. Between two truths that make each other, and
man as a third thing between them, impossible.”178 Yet, it is Christ who makes this reality
possible.
Barth’s expression of this third possibility is available only because of God.
Humanity can be established as paradox – between humanity lost and humanity saved –
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
175

Barth, GD, 70.
Barth, GD, 80.
177
This is not to deny the concepts of humanity that are offered by the social sciences. As Stuart McLean
points out, for Barth, these fields study God’s creation “and it would be strange if investigation of it did not
yield insights into who man is. The fact, however, is that the sciences of man and philosophical
anthropology have set forth a wide spectrum of views of man’s nature-all the way from B.F. Skinner to the
existentialists, each with ‘convincing’ evidence and large followings. The question for Barth is what norm
or criteria should be used to judge among them.” Stuart McLean, Humanity in the Thought of Karl Barth
(Edinburgh: T &T Clark, 1981), 27. It is this norm, the reality of a God-connected humanity that Barth is
seeking to establish. Daniel Price thus noted the benefit that is offered to non-theological descriptions of
humanity by Barth’s theological anthropology in that “Barth’s theological reflection on human nature can
provoke a thoughtful rapprochement between theology and the human sciences, stimulating a careful
delineation of both the similarities and differences between the disciplines.” Price, Anthropology, 9.
178
Barth, GD, 77.
176

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because God overcomes it. “God overcomes the contradiction by himself becoming man
and by creating faith and obedience in us by his Spirit. But because this is exclusively his
possibility, to say this is to say that man has no possibilities in this direction.”179
Humanity remains in paradox, but a paradox without contradiction. Therefore, Barth
suggests, “The Christian concept of man becomes unambivalent only when it ceases to
denote a mere relation and begins to denote what happens in the relation.”180
This concept of man, existing in an impossibility between two distinct realms, is
possible and a reality. Humanity exists under God’s “No” and “Yes,” under the weight
of damnation and support of reconciliation because of God’s work. For this reason, one’s
understanding of true humanity begins not with humanity’s “ungodliness or ignorance or
incomprehension or contraction [but with] the presupposition that man knows,
understands and accepts God’s Word.”181
Jesus Christ, God for Man and Man for God
While humanity exists as a question, as a contradiction, “Christ is the answer to the
question of man because he is God, and yet he is man, providing full perception of
humanity.”182 This shows not only Barth’s full acceptance of Chalcedonian terminology
in his first round of dogmatic lectures, but the fundamental nature they play in his
Christology and subsequently his anthropology. For Barth the Incarnation is fully divine
and fully human. These two realities exist so that they cannot be united or mixed

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179

Barth, GD, 78.
Barth, GD, 77; emphasis added.
181
Barth, GD, 85. As such Barth stands within the tradition of Calvin who suggested that the condemnation
of the Law, God’s “no”, was required to stand against humanity in order to highlight the role of Christ the
Mediator, who establishes God’s “yes” for humanity. Calvin, like Barth, understands that this prodigious
nature of Christ’s work is only apparent to humanity after it has heard God’s Word and its condemnation of
humanity Calvin, Institutes, I, 2, VIII, 367.
182
Barth, GD, 155.
180

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together, yet they also cannot be detached.183 To speak of the man Jesus is to speak of the
divine Christ and to speak of the second member of the Trinity is to speak of the man
Jesus of Nazareth. Barth shows not only an acceptance of this creedal language, but sees
a need for it in the problem of humanity. If Christ is not human He could not have
entered into humanity and perceived human experience as human experience. If Jesus is
not God He would have fallen under the same problem of the rest of humanity, unable to
escape the self and removed from any sort of transcendent experience or knowledge.
Jesus Christ can act as God in the act of revelation, and because of His humanity He can
provide, within that revelation, a true knowledge of humanity.
For Barth, the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ is a divine-human reality. While
Jesus experienced human life, He was never removed or denigrated from the divine life
of the Holy Trinity. Jesus Christ was fully human, united with God, true God.184 As Barth
states, “This idea, the idea of humanity, and this individual who incorporates it, cannot
for a single moment be abstracted from their assumption into the person of the Logos.
The divine subject who united himself with them makes them revelation.”185 God, the
Son, exists within the reality of Jesus Christ and, for Barth, never ceases to be the second
member of the Trinity. Humanity is known by God and knowable to humankind because
this man was God.
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183

Barth, GD, 138-139.
Already here in The Göttigen Dogmatics Barth firmly stands against Schleiermacher in asserting the
reality of Jesus Christ as fully God and fully human and existing in these natures in eternity. In contrast,
Schleiermacher affirms that Christ existed as human only as “the Son of God only took up human nature
into His Person.” Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christians Faith, eds. M. R. Macintosh and J. S. Stewart
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), 395. Schleiermacher was forced to consider Jesus’ existence as such
because he understood the divine and human natures as diametrically opposed “the human nature as finite
and capable of suffering, and the divine as infinite and impassable.” Jacquline Marina, “Christology and
Anthropology in Friedrich Schleiermacher,” in The Cambridge Companion to Friedrich Schleiermacher
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 153.
185
Barth, GD, 157.
184

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While the features of Christ’s divinity have received significant attention, an
understanding of Christ’s humanity has often been overlooked. It is significant to ask
how is it that God has been united to humanity? Moreover, if Jesus Christ was fully
human, how is it that God is able to provide knowledge from that experience which is
universally beneficial to all of humanity? The latter question is of particular significance
for feminist and Womynist theologians as they attempt to relate Jesus’ early male
experience with the experience of life had by “the second sex”.186
For Barth, Jesus Christ is fully human; however, this does not mean that the union
of the Divine with humanity is simply God united to an individual. “The incarnation, the
production of the God-man is not the union of the Logos with a human person but with
human nature.”187 This means that God did not merely unite with a man, a Jewish man
from the late second temple period who lived under Roman rule, but that God, in the
union of God and humanity united with humanity as a whole. Barth appears to be
suggesting that the mystical God, being the creator of humanity, united in the person of
Jesus Christ with the essence of humanity. This essence, from a human perspective, also
appears to be a mystical essence, which is indiscernible apart from Christ Himself, who
as Creator has access to this essence.
The humanity that the Son assumes in the Incarnation is a nature that is common to
all human persons. Barth is clear to articulate that “the substance of man .... This human
nature is now compressed into one individual, natura en atomo.”188 As a result of this the
feminist theologians and the Womynist theologians share a human reality with Christ.
Similarly, a middle-class boy from the suburbs of twenty-first century North America and
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186

Simon de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (New York: Vintage Books, 2011).
Barth, GD, 163.
188
Barth, GD, 156-157.
187

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an impoverished girl of no social standing, who lives in an under-developed nation,
equally experience a shared humanity with Jesus Christ, the God-man. It is for this reason
that God is able to reflect a truly human knowledge into the lives of those who seek it in
faith.189
For Barth, God must become human in order to reveal Himself to humanity, even
as the hidden God because “all the distinction, objectivity, and non-revelation comes into
focus and becomes unambiguous only in the problem of man. It is in human beings that
we meet the epitome of the I which is not here but there, which we cannot reverse, which
I cannot penetrate and grasp from within as I become he.”190 If Christ did not become
human, God would not be able to redeem humanity from the outside; if Christ did not
become human, humanity would be unable to gain a full image of itself through God’s
self-revelation.
Christological Anthropology and Christological Election
Barth’s theology stands firmly within the Reformed tradition, even while he was
writing in the Lutheran context of Göttingen. As it develops, his anthropology is greatly
shaped by the concept of election. Both Barth’s anthropology and his concept of election
continue to be highly Christological. However, already within the Göttingen round of
lectures, Barth’s anthropology is shaped by his concept of election.
Contrary to many contemporary concepts of election within the Reformed tradition,
Barth’s concept is explicitly anti-modern, even here in his early writing. Moreover, his
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189

It is because of this concept of a shared humanity that Cynthia Rigby is able to use the theology of Barth
towards “a feminist incarnational Christology. Cynthia Rigby, “The Real Word ”, 5. Rigby concludes that
using Barth’s incarnational Christology supports relational living by revealing the depth of God’s
participation in human existence, the uniqueness of the Christ-event ensures the value of humanity in all of
its particularities, and Jesus’ use of substitutionary agency, within a representational framework, upholds
the humanity of all, including minority groups. Rigby, “The Real Word,” 290.
190
Barth, GD, 136-137.

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concept of theology is not individualistic, but communal. It is for this reason that Barth
states “who is elect? Not the individual, but the whole mystical Christ, that is, Christ with
his own, Christ as the head and Redeemer of the church.”191 This has anthropological
effects for Christ because in election Christ not only elects to redeem humanity, but He
stands for humanity as the elected. Following the Synod of Dort, Barth sees the
“institution of Christ as Mediator and Head of the elect, their effectual calling and
drawing to him, their justification, sanctification, preservation, and glorification”192 as
having significant anthropological implications. Humanity is justified, sanctified,
preserved and glorified because Christ stands as their head, as God for man and man for
God. As such, Christ reveals true humanity to both God and humanity.
The God-Man and Our Humanity
Barth is clear in his first round of dogmatic lectures that humanity is re-created
when it is engaged by God’s revelation. Christ, in revelation, places before man a
knowledge of God and self that transforms the individual into the human that they were
created to be.193 However, humanity remains sinful, only able to cry “Wretched man that
I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”194 Yet the work of Christ places
humans in a renewed situation wherein they “reach the place which sets in direct
juxtaposition the cry: ‘Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!’”195 This means
that while the believer’s humanity has been transformed “we know that we cannot equate
this new, regenerate person ... with ourselves.”196
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191

Barth, GD, 463.
Barth, GD, 463.
193
Barth, GD, 155.
194
Barth, GD, 349.
195
Barth, GD, 349.
196
Barth, GD, 127.
192

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The Divine has encountered humanity; however, renewal is a continual process. At
this point Barth sees the reality of renewal and even appears to point to the experience of
renewal in this life, yet this experience does not appear complete. Humanity that has
experienced renewal has yet to been renewed in full. This experience of “Now” and “Not
yet” means that the Christian experiences life as simul iustus et peccator.197
From within his Reformed tradition, Barth perceives God encountering humanity as
a result of divine election. Christians are elected in Christ, but “the elect in Christ are not
plucked out of the mass of perdition, out of rejection, in such a way that they are no
longer sinners or mortal, or that they are totally or even partially lifted out of the darkness
of human existence. Election does not give rise to any island of the blessed or Pharisaic
corner of the righteous in the world.”198 Election in Christ does not mean that the Church
is removed from the world or that Christians escape the very real human experience of
pain, sorrow, and separation. Instead, election in Christ means that those who are chosen
by God “belong to their faithful Saviour Jesus Christ.”199
Summary
In these Göttingen lectures Barth admits that his anthropology appears similar to
modern conceptions of humanity developing from Schleiermacher in its optimism
regarding the future of humanity, but it has two fundamental distinctions. First, he deals
with sin prior to grace, treating it as a reality as opposed to an excuse. Barth understands
the sinful reality of humanity, like more fundamentalist concepts of sin, to be that a
reality. However, Christ’s work altars this reality so it is not final. Therefore one may
speak of sinful humanity, but in coming to know sinful humanity the individual also
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197

“At once righteous and a sinner.” Muller, Dictionary, 283.
Barth, GD, 465.
199
Barth, GD, 465.
198

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encounters God’s grace.200 Second, Barth’s emphasis is in opposition to that of optimistic
modern conceptions of humanity, and most importantly his “circle” works in the opposite
direction. Barth begins with God before considering humanity, creating a theoanthropology. Modern liberal thought began with humanity before turning to consider
God, creating an anthropo-theology.201
Barth begins to develop his theo-anthropology in volume I of The Göttingen
Dogmatics. This concept can be seen as a continuation of the concept that is developed in
The Epistle to the Romans and is illustrated throughout The Word of God and The Word
of Man lectures. Barth’s anthropology of The Göttingen Dogmatics has a particularly
Christological structure, while using a significant amount of theological terminology, as
compared to Christological terminology.202 His apparent step away from Christological
language is only apparent at the surface level, for all references to the Triune God in The
Göttingen Dogmatics, particularly in reference to humanity, are references to Christ.
Thus, it is reasonable to suggest that Barth communicates a Christological anthropology
by way of theological language in The Göttingen Dogmatics.
Conclusion
In this chapter we have examined Barth’s early writing in relation to his doctrine of
anthropology. In doing so, it underscores the Christological implications for Barth’s
understanding of humanity in his career as early as 1916. In agreement with John
Webster, this Christological focus transforms anthropology from a natural bridge
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200

Barth, GD, 80.
Barth, GD, 80.
202
In The Göttingen Dogmatics Barth often discusses humanity in connection with God. Both in The
Epistle to the Romans and later in Church Dogmatics, Barth will speak of humanity in connection with
Christ. It is my suggestion that in The Göttingen Dogmatics Barth’s use of “God” refers to the Triune God,
which includes, and may be synonymous with, the second member of the Trinity, as opposed to referring
solely to God the Father, the first member of the Trinity.
201

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between God and man to a consequential doctrine.203As early as The Epistle to the
Romans Barth exploits a reversal of the process of anthropological development,
beginning with divine revelation rather than human knowledge. This re-evaluation allows
Barth to take seriously the problem of humanity while avoiding defeatism. He neither
surrenders humanity to the fall, nor to blind optimism, but rather emphasizes the
possibility of transformation from death to life in Christ. It is for this reason that Ingolf
Dalferth can state, “from the publication of his Epistle to the Romans in 1919 ... Barth did
not waver on this fundamental point: the reality to which theology refers is the
eschatological reality of the risen Christ and the new life into which we are drawn by the
Spirit.”204
Barth continues to develop his Christological concept of humanity, most notably in
§ 44 of volume III/2 of his Church Dogmatics.205 Yet, the Christological groundwork for
humanity is already laid here in The Epistle to the Romans, The Word of God and the
Word of Man, and in volume I of The Göttingen Dogmatics. It is Christological footing
that allows Thomas Torrance to point to the error in both Emil Brunner’s “The New
Barth”206 and Hans Urs von Balthasar’s perceived turn to analogy and the anthropological
adoption of natural theology in Barth’s thought.207 Therefore, Torrance is correct in
stating that “the ‘Christian humanism’ of the new man expounded by Barth in the various
parts of his third volume [of his Church Dogmatics] belonged to the very essence of his
main theme [of his theology].”208
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203

Webster, “Creation,” 95.
Ingolf Dalferth, “Karl Barth’s Eschatological Realism,” in Karl Barth: Centenary Essays, ed. S. W.
Sykes (Cambridge: Ambridge University Press, 1989), 21.
205
See chapter 4.
206
Brunner, “The New Barth,” 123.
207
von Balthasar, Karl Barth, 153-155.
208
Torrance, Early Theology, 23.
204

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CHAPTER 2: ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE OPENING OF CHURCH DOGMATICS
Introduction
Barth spent over thirty-five years crafting his third and final, though incomplete,
round of dogmatics.209 In Church Dogmatics Barth emphasizes the role of divine
revelation in theological knowledge more stringently than in his earlier works, such as
The Epistle to the Romans, The Word of God and The Word of Man, and The Göttingen
Dogmatics. Despite McCormack’s downplaying210 of the changes within the
methodology and content of these earlier works compared to the Church Dogmatics,211
there is a marked increase in the clarity of the realdialektik between God and humanity,
as well as “the removal of ‘false’ conceptions of the human agent.”212
The differences between Barth’s Church Dogmatics and his earlier work may be a
point of contention for some, yet it is without doubt that his Church Dogmatics stands as
a true magnum opus. It is the goal this of chapter to explore the presence of Barth’s
theological anthropology within the early sections of his Church Dogmatics, which leads
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209

Earlier Barth abandoned what has come to be known as The Göttingen Dogmatics as well as his yet-tobe translated Christian Dogmatics.
210
As a result of McCormack’s correct efforts to overcome von Balthasar’s errors of perceiving multiple
significant transitions and conversions within Barth’s writing, McCormack within his work Karl Barth’s
Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology appears to over react, disallowing for any growth, change, or
variation within Barth’s writing, even in ways that are fundamentally congruent with Barth’s Christological
basis of his theological program.
211
McCormack asserts that “the differences between the Christliche Dogmatik and Church Dogmatics I/1
and I/2 are simply not great enough to require beginning anew.” McCormack Critically Realistic
Dialectical, 15. For McCormack, the chief reason why Barth restarted his dogmatics was due to historical
coincidences, the disintegration of relations between Barth and his earlier theological comrades (Gogarten,
Bultmann and Brunner), and dramatic changes of political landscape within Germany in the elections of
September 1930 that saw the rise of the National Socialist German Workers Party. McCormack suggests
that these results “moved Barth to distance himself in as public a way as possible from his former friends.
What better way than to exaggerate the distance separating his own theology in the present moment of 1931
from the theological way he had followed throughout the twenties (and thereby the theology which he had
promoted together with Gogarten et al)?” McCormack, Critically Realistic Dialectical, 15.
212
Spencer, Clearing A Space, 247.

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to volume III.2, particularly §44. It also seeks to highlight the continuity of these volumes
with Barth’s earlier work. It also marks the continued development of his Christological
anthropology through the lens of the various modes of theology covered in the preceding
volumes, a concept “that was present in nuce”213 in Barth’s earlier work. These concepts
are explored particularly though the lens of the three major doctrines of volumes I
through III.2 of Church Dogmatics: revelation, God and creation.
Humanity in Barth’s Doctrine of Revelation
Revelation as the Source of Theology and Anthropology
Similar to Barth’s earlier writings, volume I/1 of his Church Dogmatics rejects the
certainty of Descartes.214 However, Barth’s denial of human-derived knowledge does not
preclude the possibility of human certainty, only the anthropocentric source of it.
Theological knowledge comes to be a reality of human certainty, even self-certainty,
although it is not a self-derived self-certainty.
For Barth, divine revelation is truth. However, this truth is not a humanly defined
category, instead it stems from the very nature of God, who is it’s source. God’s
revelation is truth because God is truth. Humanity cannot ascribe meaning to God’s
revelation; they can only stand under it. For this reason Barth states that “the fact of
God’s Word does not receive its dignity and validity in any respect or even to the
slightest degree from a presupposition that we bring to it. Its truth for us, like its truth in
itself, is grounded absolutely in itself.”215 Fergus Kerr thus describes Barth’s
anthropology as leading us “from the Cartesian self to Christ’s humanity,”216 and as a
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213

Webster, Moral, 30-31.
That being a certainty based solely on human reason and human answers to human questions.
215
Barth, CD I/1, 196.
216
Fergus Kerr, Immortal Longings (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), 24.
214

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result humanity comes to understand itself not through self-critical thought or selfcertainty, but in the knowledge that is given by God.
Humanity that lacks revelation lacks self-perception. Humanity’s knowledge
outside of revelation is so limited that it is unable to recognize its own limitations. In
light of this reality, Barth concludes, “Revelation itself is needed for knowing that God is
hidden and man blind.”217 Revelation acts as the wind to blow away the chaff of human
knowledge. Therefore, “there can be no point in trying to maintain man’s self
determination in some way, even dialectically, over against the determination of man by
God.”218 Without God’s revelatory act, humanity fails to perceive the extent of its own
brokenness and the corruption of its perception. “The Word of God tells us that we are
created by God out of nothing and held up by Him over nothing.”219
Truth is rooted in God and provided to humanity by God. In this case truth is the
co-knowledge of God and humanity. From this rationale, human self-knowledge then
either systemically oversells or undersells humanity.220 It is for this reason that Eberhard
Jüngel recognizes Barth’s perception wherein “humankind can never receive its due as
long as it seeks it within itself.”221 In this early stage of Barth’s Church Dogmatics he
clears the way of all possibilities of humanly sourced knowledge because divine
revelation casts a shadow of doubt over human knowledge, particularly human
knowledge of God. Yet, Hans Vium Mikkelsen states “the primary function of revelation
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217

Barth, CD I/2, 29.
Barth, CD I/1, 200.
219
Barth, CD I/2, 40.
220
Humanity understands itself as either a sort of superhuman, full of hubris and an arrogant concept of
infallibility, believing in their ability to accomplish any task, even self understanding, or human
understanding leads to an understanding of utter fallibility, that humanity lacks the ability to act for itself,
as though it were a log floating upon the sea.
221
Eberhard Jüngel, “The Royal Man” in Karl Barth: A Theological Legacy, trans. Garrett E. Paul
(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986), 128.
218

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is not to disclose what the human being cannot say about God. In the [Church
Dogmatics] (as in the Epistle to the Romans) God remains the [W]holly [O]ther, but here
it becomes clear that the [W]holly [O]ther is defined positively (in terms of its own
independent content) and not negatively (in terms of what it is not).”222
God’s Word of revelation, that is Jesus Christ, stands as the source of all
knowledge of God and the related knowledge of humanity.223 God’s revelation in His
Word also stands as the limit of all knowledge of humanity. Human beings are unable to
establish a knowledge of themselves that is outside what God has revealed to them.224 In
Jesus Christ humanity comes to know for certain what creation is, who the Creator is, and
what it means to be the creation of this Creator.225 As such, “The very man who knows
the Word of God also knows that he can bring no capability of his own to this knowledge,
but has first to receive all capability.”226 Humanity holds the possibility of selfknowledge but this possibility exists only because it receives both the method and content
of that knowledge from Christ. God’s revelatory act not only provides the light of divine

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222

Mikkelsen, Reconciled Humanity, 45. As Mikkelsen points out, any attempt to describe humanity solely
on negative terms, via negative theology, is “an inconsistent way to avoid anthropomorphically structured
theology, as it makes itself fully dependent on what it negates.” Mikkelsen, Reconciled Humanity, 45).
223
Again, Barth is not suggesting that all knowledge of humanity is derived in revelation, but that
knowledge of humanity as a whole (what humanity is) is sourced in revelation. Barth can be seen as
standing in the shadow of Calvin, who understands the angel of the Lord, who appears throughout the Old
Testament, as the Word of God, Jesus Christ. As such, “the orthodox doctors of the church have rightly and
prudently interpreted that chief angel to be God’s Word, who already at the time, as a sort of foretaste,
began to fulfil the office of Mediator.” Calvin, Institutes, I, 1, XIII. 133.
224
In this Barth follows the work of Athanasius who states that “When God the Almighty was making
mankind through His own Word, He perceived that they, owing to the limitation of their nature, could not
of themselves have any knowledge of their Artificer, the Incorporeal and Uncreated.” But instead provided
knowledge of His Word, that is Christ. Athanasius, The Incarnation of the Word of God, trans. Penelope
Lawson (New York: The MacMillians Company, 1946), 37-38.
225
Biggar, The Hastening that Waits, 54.
226
Barth, CD I/1, 197.

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knowledge within the experiences of the individual, but in this casts shadows upon the
possibility of true human self-knowledge.227
Revelation casts doubt on the possibility of a true general anthropology based on
human knowledge. Thus, Barth writes, “it is not for us to know in advance what we are
on the ground of a general anthropology. We are what the Word of God tells us we are.
We are flesh.”228 Similar to his explanation in The Epistle to the Romans, Barth
pronounces a “No” against all humanly ascertained knowledge. While humanity is flesh,
their realization of this is not the terminus of human knowledge, but the inauguration of
it. Humanity cannot be understood outside of flesh, however, “that is what God’s Word
Himself becomes in His revelation.”229 Human beings encounter God as they are, because
of His action to stand as they stand. Because of this “the noetic and ontological
determination of man is, from beginning to end Christologically centered. We cannot
know man first and then understand Jesus Christ in light of this self-knowledge. Rather,
to know man is first to know the man Jesus and then to define all humanity in light of this
prior knowledge.”230 The Incarnation stands as the gateway to and the means of human
knowledge of the Triune God, and humanity is grounded in God’s truthful nature, as seen
in Christ. All other knowledge of humankind is cast into doubt.

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227

Mikkelsen points out that Barth’s theological centre of revelation is able to avoid the two major pitfalls
of contemporary theology: fundamentalism and relativism. Fundamentalism is a claim that the authority of
the Bible is based on a literal understanding of it, “where the Bible is read as the answer to all our questions
in a way that does not take its own context and historical embeddedness into account.” Mikkelsen,
Reconciled Humanity, 3. Interpretation is either abandoned or used as a synonym for translation. This
means that there is no possibility of the perception of change either in the message or in God. Mikkelsen,
Reconciled Humanity, 3). Relativism, on the other hand, is the view that no religion can claim to be the true
religion, such claims are to be seen as imperialism and tolerance is the singular aspiration. Mikkelsen,
Reconciled Humanity, 4.
228
Barth, CD I/2, 40.
229
Barth, CD I/2, 40.
230
Spencer, Clearing a Space, 264.

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For Barth, “the procedure in theology, then, is to establish self-certainty on the
certainty of God, to measure it by the certainty of God, and thus to begin with the
certainty of God without waiting for the validating of this beginning by self-certainty.”231
Therefore, attempts at Cartesian proofs of existence, particularly of God, spiral back into
the Cartesian metaphysics of the self.232 Divine revelation means that humanity is set free
of continual doubt, which as a result of human fallibility drives humanity into selfdestructive and nihilistic agnosticism.233 In His revelatory work, God not only provides
humanity a knowledge of the Divine as a result of His perfect self-perception, but also a
knowledge of humanity, streaming from God’s perception of His creations as it truly is.
For this reason, humanity can have anthropological certainty because it is first of all theoanthropological certainty.
God’s freedom to reveal Himself in the Incarnation makes a way for humanity to
come into an understanding of God and His creation. Revelation is the beginning of true
human knowledge. There can be no other starting point for anthropological knowledge
than revelation. The existence of humanity in both faith and obedience to the Word of
God is a direct result of God’s work of revelation through the Incarnation without
overlooking humanity’s sinful reality.234 God and His action become the basis of human
self-knowledge. It is for this reason that Stuart McLean notes that while “most
theologians start with man, then demonstrate how he is related to God, and finally show
how he is related to other men .... Barth begins with God’s freely-given relationship to
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231

Barth, CD, 196.
Fergus Kerr, Theology After Wittgenstein (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1986), 8.
233
Unlike Narcissus, Cartesian questioning leads to a drowning of the self, not because of a recognition of
one’s beauty, but because of a reaching out to secure the image of one’s self in the reflective pool.
Cartesian doubt ultimately plunges humanity into a deadly encounter with the perception of the self, unable
to secure complete knowledge of the self it plunge deeper and deeper into its watery grave.
234
Barth, CD I/2, 206.
232

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man which can be ignored or forgotten by man, but not destroyed.”235Thus Barth does not
create an anthropo-theology but a theo-anthroplogy.
This theologically centred form of anthropology allows for three unique benefits in
understanding humanity. First, it is not necessary to pit one “centre” of human selfdetermination against another.236 Second, there is not the “fundamental distrust and
suspicions that is often found in the history of theology” regarding these “centres.”
Instead, they are understood and respected for the human reality that they are, yet are not
saddled with the responsibility of forming the definition of humanity.237 Third,
individuals need not turn themselves inside out searching for the true centre and meaning
of humanity because human meaning and self-understanding is in God’s revelatory act.238
Human Reality in the God-Given Reality
In humanity’s encounter with revelation, Barth suggests that they experience a
reflection of true humanity. However this is not simply a hypothetical or abstract
description of humanity that may exist, but a reality that has, does, and will continue to
exist in the person of Jesus Christ.239 It is this reality that opens the door for human
action, true human action because of the action of God in His Word. “If God is seriously
involved in experience of the Word of God, then man is just as seriously involved too.
The very man who stands in real knowledge of the Word of God also knows himself as
existing in the act of his life, as existing in his self-determination.”240 Even in this early
phase of Barth’s Church Dogmatics, it is in this act of revelation that self-determination
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235

McLean, Humanity, 23.
Barth, CD I/1, 202. These “centres” stand for various forms of humanity that have been understood to
form the basis of what it means to be human such as experience, will, conscience, and feeling, against other
forms.
237
Barth, CD I/1, 202.
238
Barth, CD I/1, 203.
239
Barth, CD I/1, 198.
240
Barth, CD I/1, 200.
236

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becomes possible, not because of human action, but because of human action that is made
possible by divine action. Simultaneously, Barth is working to clear away humanly
derived certainty, and point to the possibility and reality of a divinely derived human
certainty.
In consequence, humanity gains agency for action based upon the reality of faith
within humanity. Barth explains:
Man exists as a believer wholly and utterly by this object. In believing he can think
of himself as grounded, not in self but only in this object, as existing indeed only by
this object. He has not created his own faith; the Word has created it. He has not
come to faith; faith has come to him; faith has been granted to him through the
Word.241
Recall that Barth does not see faith as a human-derived reality, but a reality that is gifted
to humanity by God. Faith is what makes human agency a reality, but such a faith can
only be grounded upon the faith of Christ.242 For this reason Barth views humanity as the
“subject of faith. Man believes, not God. But the fact that man is this subject in faith is
bracketed as a predicate of the subject God.”243
Christological Humanity in Volume I of Church Dogmatics
The possibility of human knowledge exists exclusively because of the person of
Jesus Christ, the God-man. Humanity is offered revelation and true human experience
because in Jesus there exists the unique reality of true God and true humanity. In the
Incarnation God crosses the boundary that marks Him as the Wholly Other and becomes
wholly like humanity, as they were designed to live. God moves “in general terms,
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241

Barth, CD I/1, 244-245.
In CD I/1, Barth more clearly states what he has earlier hinted at: his adoption of the “Genetivus
mysticus !"#$%& '(#)* +,%#$)*.” Barth states that “!"#$,' denotes the state created by God’s revelation in
Christ, the being of Christians, their being -. /0,#$1, by which they are put in a position to achieve for
their part the knowledge of God or of Christ as the Kyrios, the reality of man in which this achievement is
an event.” Barth, CD I/1, 228.
243
Barth, CD I/1, 245.
242

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between His own existence and the existence of that which is not identical with
Himself.”244 This means that God is able to transcend difference in Christ, knowing
humanity, revealing humanity to humanity, and creating the possibility of the human
experiencing humanity as it was created. In this act of transcending difference, it must be
noted that “it is not that God is still God despite humiliating Godself for us in Jesus
Christ; it is that God is precisely God in the humiliation for us in Jesus that incarnation
brings.”245
Humanity stands in a sickness because of its separation from God. However, the
sickness may be hidden behind an aspect of soundness, strength, and victory, yet God’s
work of revelation shows it to be sickness, weakness, and defeat.246 With Christ “God
plunges us into this despair when He reveals Himself to us, when His Word is made flesh
and the judgment of our flesh by the Holy Spirit, who opens our eyes and ear and
therefore kindles our faith.”247 In this revelation the human is struck by the utter failure of
his or her actions and knowledge. To be human is to be “liable to die, and if nevertheless
we live in the midst of death .... This is the meaning of flesh .... This is the real meaning
of man.”248
It must be noted that Barth understands this questioning not as a disposal of
humanity, but a clearing of the clutter to indicate the true human reality that God intended
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244

Barth, CD I/2, 31. It is important to note the words of Paul Nimmo: “It is not that God is still God
despite humiliating God-self for us in Jesus Christ; it is that God is precisely God in the humiliation for us
in Jesus Christ that incarnation brings.” Paul Nimmo, “Barth and the Christian as Ethical Agent: An
Ontological Study of the Shape of Christian Ethics” in Commanding Grace: Studies in Karl Barth’s Ethics,
ed. Daniel Migliore (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 223.
245
Nimmo, “Barth and the Christian as Ethical Agent,” 223. Later in 1956, Barth will refer to this as “the
humanity of God” which is means “God’s relation to and turning toward man.... It represents God’s
existence, intercession, and activity for man, the intercourse God holds with him, and the free grace in
which He wills to be and is nothing other than the God of man.” Karl Barth, “The Humanity of God, 37.
246
Barth, CD I/2, 428.
247
Barth, CD I/2, 372.
248
Barth, CD I/2, 40.

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in creation. Through this encounter with Christ, humanity experiences death, but this
experience of death brings about true human life. This truly human life is possible
because this flesh, this life of death, was the humanity that Christ assumed.249 When
humanity’s eyes are opened, “the Christian life begins. We are born and live as the
children of God. And then we are real men who really love.”250
As early as volume I of Church Dogmatics, Barth points out that this encounter
with Christ is what makes the seemingly impossible statements of the Sermon on the
Mount and Scripture, as a whole, possible for humanity. “By the Spirit who is the Lord
[those who follow Him] are ‘changed into his (Christ’s) likeness.’ The result is, therefore,
that they become a mirror of the glory of the Lord.”251
Humanity’s Freedom and God’s freedom
In the first volume of Church Dogmatics Barth continues to build on the concept of
divinely-based human freedom by highlighting the Christological basis of this human
freedom, as it is viewed within a Chalcedonian framework. Human freedom exists
because of God’s freedom and is made possible by the Incarnation of God as human. The
uniting of God and human in the person of Jesus Christ means that sinful humanity can
enter into divine freedom. In the Incarnation “God is not prevented either by His own
deity or by our humanity and sinfulness and from being is free for us and in us.”252 In the
Incarnation God reaches beyond his otherness and our sinfulness to share with humanity

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249

Barth, CD I/2, 40.
Barth, CD I/2, 372-373.
251
Barth, CD I/2, 278.
252
Barth, CD I/2, 2.
250

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His freedom. Humanity stands in the possibility of freedom, but a freedom that is rooted
solely in God.253
In this Christological reality Barth answers the question: “In what freedom of
man’s is it real that God’s revelation reaches us?”254 Therefore, he opens §16 by stating
that “To become free for God we must be convinced that we are not already free. We
must make room for the miracle of acknowledging the Word of God. The Word of God
comprises in itself the necessary negation.”255 In this Barth proclaims that humanity is
offered freedom by God,256 but within this freedom there is a “No” pronounced against
human pride and humanly-derived agency. God offers freedom for humanity, but this
freedom cannot stand along side of human attempts at freedom, One must either ignore
the Divine’s offer or deny their fleshly desires of autonomy.257
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253

In this concept of freedom, Barth overcomes the common problem of modern understandings of human
freedom, which perceives freedom as the absence of order or nature that shapes the self from outside, in
that such modern conceptions of freedom face the problem of “relating freedom to a situation.” Webster,
Moral, 155. Additionally, Charles Taylor points out that modern liberal concepts of human freedom are
understood as “something men win though to by setting aside obstacles or breaking loose from external
impediments, ties, or entanglements. To be free is to untrammelled, to depend in one’s actions only on
oneself.” Taylor, Hegel, 155. Such modern concepts of freedom can be seen as a notion of freedom that has
no content. Taylor, Hegel, 155. Following Barth’s theological concept, freedom retains content because of
its divine source. This divine source means that such freedom is able to by-pass or overcome the bane of
political liberalism of late; the clash of personal freedoms. This clash seen in “multicultural” societies
throughout recent history has resulted in a situation in which, as noted English scholar Terry Eagleton
notes, “the nation’s liberal values ... undermin[e] the liberal values it sought to protect [in the first place].”
Terry Eagleton, Reason, Faith, and Revolution (London: Yale University Press, 2009), 150.
254
Barth, CD I/2, 204.
255
Barth, CD I/2, 258. Like Hegel, Barth sees such liberal concepts of freedom as superficial because they
fail to probe the question why individuals make the choices they do. However, unlike Hegel’s concept of
freedom being rooted in a recognition of a common human ability for reason, Barth perceives freedom as
been rooted in God’s revelatory act. It is only when humanity stands under the crisis can it be free. Peter
Singer, “Hegel, G.W.F.” in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. Ted Honderich (New York: Oxford
University press, 1995), 314.
256
Barth’s concept of freedom is unique, in that true freedom is not freedom to choose good or evil, as it is
for Calvin (Calvin, Institutes, I, 2,II, 259), but a freedom to exist as truly human.
257
Jesse Couenhoven wonders if divine freedom in Barth’s mind is something quite different than what he
has in mind when he speaks of human freedom. As a result of this question he ask if there might not
“Therefore be significant ways in which Barth’s theology implies that divine and human freedom are not
properly considered analogous at all?” Jesse Couenhoven “Karl Barth’s Conception(s) of Human and
Divine Freedom(s)” in Commanding Grace: Studies in Karl Barth’s Ethics, ed. Daniel Migliore (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 239. In light of this question, John Webster’s reading is very helpful. Webster

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When individuals accept the reality of the realdialektik and its affect on our human
freedom, they can enter into the freedom made possible by the Incarnation. “God’s
freedom for us men is a fact in Jesus Christ” Barth exclaims.258 Humanity no longer
struggles against oppression to create freedom. Freedom is not found at the end of a
bayonet, in courtroom decisions or as a result of royal assent, but because of God’s
openness for humanity in Christ. As Barth suggests Christ’s “existence is God’s freedom
for man. Or vice versa God’s freedom for man is the existence of Jesus Christ.”259 In this
case, just as God entered into human created-ness in Christ, humanity also has the
possibility of entering into God’s divine freedom, freedom that does not counter the
human reality or stand in opposition to the freedom of the other, but is based upon the
truth of who God is. Such a theological concept of freedom shows, as John Webster
points out, “the lie that liberty is unformed and unconstrained self-actualization .... In
evangelical freedom I am so bound to God’s grace and God’s call that I am liberated
from all other bonds and set free to live in the truth ... Evangelical freedom is thus
freedom from the powers that inhibit me (including, and especially my own powers).”260

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points out three significant aspects of Barth’s freedom. First, Barth’s freedom must be read in a multilayered or dialectic way (which holds in tension the following three attributes: 1) “God’s freedom is His
very own. It is the sovereign grace wherein God chooses to commit Himself to man. Thereby God is Lord
as man’s God.” 2) “Man’s freedom is his as the gift of God. It is the joy wherein man appropriates God’s
election. Thereby man is God’s creature, His partner, and His child as God’s man.” 3) Ethics for the
Evangelical life is “the reflection upon the divine call to human action” that is implied by the gift of this
freedom.) Second, Barth does not attempt to construct a better set of terms for the problem of freedom, but
worked towards a “disciplined description of Christian discourse, normatively found in Holy Scripture.”
Third, Barth’s concept of human freedom is that it is a “the matter of human freedom is spiritual in
character.” Webster, Moral, 100-102.
258
Barth, CD I/2, 25.
259
Barth, CD I/2, 25.
260
John Webster, Holiness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 92-93. It is for this reason that later, in 1953,
Barth will state in a lecture entitled “the Gift of Freedom” that “seen from the vantage point of the free gift
of God, the concept of unfree man is a contradiction in itself. Unfree man is a creature of chaos, a monster
begotten by his own pride, his own laziness, his own lies.” Karl Barth, “The Gift of Freedom” in The
Humanity of God, trans. Thomas Wieser, 76.

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Humanity as Rationality and Embodiment
Anthropological concepts of conservative theologies, particularly those influenced
by English Puritanism and German Pietism, tend to emphasize the mortification of the
flesh, which results in the downplaying and a damnation of humanity. Such tendencies
cast off of the physical and temporal aspects of humanity in the hopes of a perfected
spiritual or eschatological future reality. Liberal theologies that are based on modern
concepts of enlightenment view humanity as perfectible, but perfectible in and through a
particular aspect of humanity related to rationality wherein humanity can overcome the
current weakness of itself. Most often this is related to an aspect of human embodiment.
Both liberal and conservative anthropologies do violence to the individual, downplaying
human embodiment and other aspects of the human experience that are part of the
existential reality of human life.
Here in the first volume of Church Dogmatics Barth stands against both
conservative and liberal denigrations of human reality in understanding human flesh as a
reality of human embodiment and human experience, but not the sum of either of these
two categories. Barth explains that “Flesh, of course, signifies man, humanity or manness, but not in such that by this designation a fuller content is added to a conception of
man already familiar or to a conception which can be acquired from other sources.”261
Human reality is in part a reality of the flesh, thus our fleshly experience cannot be
denied, ignored, or separated from intellectual or spiritual aspects of humanity. Spirit and
body are bound up in a single individual and thus each continually affects and dialogs
with the other. In this understanding, flesh is not denied in revelation nor is spiritual
reality denied in everyday life. Because of this union, Barth understands that the “man
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261

Barth, CD I.2, 40.

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who is flesh is man who faces God and so already in himself man in spiritual reality, man
whom God’s revelation encounters.”262 Because of this interplay between body and soul,
spirit and flesh, Mangina suggests that
Barth is able to honour that which ironically eludes many modern doctrines of
personhood: the peculiar contours of our individual stories in their social worlds.
Barth is less interested in the dynamics of the self than he is in the common world
of action and social institutions in which people live out their sometimes heroic,
more often unspectacular, but always interesting lives.263
Humanity in Relationality
Finally, in the first volume of Church Dogmatics, Barth is highly critical of
isolationist tendencies within enlightenment thought.264 He understands that no human is
an island, and that based on Scripture humanity is always grounded on a dependence and
a relationship with God. Barth explains, “The method prescribed for us by Holy Scripture
not only assumes that the entelechy of man’s I-ness is not divine in nature but, on the
contrary, is in contradiction to the divine nature. It also assumes that God is in no way
bound to man, that His revelation is thus an act of His freedom, contradicting man’s
contradiction.”265 Humanity exists in a social reality with one another because it is first of
all based on a social relationship with God. “Seeing then that the life of the children of
God is a dependence upon the incarnate Word, it is a common life .... a Church
community.”266 In this Barth already understands the Christian life as a true possibility

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262

Barth, CD I.2, 44. In this Barth follows Athanasius who describes humanity as properly understood as
being created by God “as an embodied spirit.” Athanasius, Incarnation, 29.
263
Mangina, Christian Life, 14.
264
An example of this is seen in Barth’s critic of G. Wobbermin and Heinrich Scholz in volume I.1. Here
Barth states that in his grounding of humanity and human certainty in the “I-experience” results in a reality
that may lead one to ask if “this cartesianism is really as impregnable as it usually purports to be even of
this philosophical plane.” Barth, CD I/1, 195.
265
Barth, CD I/2, 7.
266
Barth, CD I/2, 17.

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and reality, but as one of dependence, both upon God for His revelation and the
community formed by His revelation.
Summary
In the first volume of Church Dogmatics Barth conceives of humanity as existing in
context of both a divine “No” and a divine “Yes.” This “Yes” is established through the
work of the “No” and allows humanity to stand as truly human, as a human that is in a
right relationship with others and with God, in true freedom that is based on God’s
provision of freedom in Himself. Mangina points out that “In Church Dogmatics I/1 one
sees him deploying a technical vocabulary that will allow him to hold together both
God’s sovereignty in revelation and the reality of human response. To put it quite simply,
if there is real knowledge of God there has to be a real knower.”267 This means that
humanity is established in the act of revelation, it is revelation that is the source of true
human knowledge, both of God and humanity. God acts to reveal Himself and thus
establishes humanity ontologically and noetically in this act of revelation.
In the revelation of God humanity comes to understand its situation as utterly sinful
but also its relationship to God through Christ. This relationship is made possible in faith,
established in the faithfulness of God in Jesus Christ. Already here in volume I of his
Church Dogmatics Barth is able to discuss the reality of a Christologically grounded
humanity, a humanity that is able to experience true freedom, and a humanity that is
understood as encompassing the entirety of the human, both body and soul. This human
reality is finally understood in its social reality, a reality that exists first between God and
humanity, as a result of God’s actions, which allows for pro-social human activity in
Christ.
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267

Mangina, Christian Life, 35.

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Humanity in Barth’s Doctrine of God
Election as the Means and Possibility of Barth’s Christological Anthropology
Barth’s concept of election marks his greatest innovation in the area of theology,
which as Colin Gunton notes, “led to one of the most remarkable transformations in the
history of theology.”268 Barth’s unique perspective on election offers a reformation of the
traditional Reformed concept. As a result, Barth’s anti-individualistic perspective will
continue to shape theology into the foreseeable future.269
For Barth, election is viewed as being thoroughly Christological, which has
significant implications in his anthropology, as his Christological doctrine of election
makes possible his Christological doctrine of anthropology. Election stands as the
concept that allows Barth to take seriously humanity’s existential struggle in a fallen
world and humanity’s divinely-given reality of a reconciled existence. It is for this reason
that the present section of this chapter seeks to explore Barth’s Christological concept of
election and the subsequent effects it has on his Christological anthropology.
Barth discusses election as early as volume I/2 of his Church Dogmatics;270
however, he most clearly introduces and discusses this concept in §32 through to §35.
Barth masterfully introduces the reader to his Christological concept of election in the
introductory statement of §33 when he writes: “The election of grace is the eternal
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268

Colin Gunton “Forward” in John Colwell, Actuality and Provisionality: Eternity and Election in the
Theology of Karl Barth (Edinburgh: Rutherford House Books, 1989), 1.
269
Bruce McCormack, “Grace and Being: The Role of God’s Gracious Election in Karl Barth’s
Theological Ontology,” in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, ed. John Webster (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2000), 92. McCormack notes that while there may be significant doctrinal
development in other areas within Barth’s Church Dogmatics, “none could have the sweeping significance
for the shape of his theology as a whole which the modifications in his doctrine of election had,”
McCormack, Critically Realistic Dialectical, 462.
270
Most particularly in §17, “The Revelation of God as the Sublimation of Religion” and particularly
§17.3, “The True Religion.” Karl Barth, On Religion: The Revelation of God as the Sublimation of
Religion, trans. Garrett Green (London: T&T Clark, 2006).

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beginning of all the ways and works of God in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ God in His
free grace determines Himself for sinful man and sinful man for Himself. He therefore
takes upon Himself the rejection of man with all its consequences, and elects man to
participation in His own glory.”271 In this statement Barth clarifies that God as Christ, in
His freedom, elects to stand for sinful humanity and in doing so elects to redeem
humanity from its sinfulness. Already Barth hints toward an anthropological possibility
of renewed humanity as a result of God’s election of Christ as a representative of
humanity. Divine grace is, for Barth, the grounds upon which election is based.
Furthermore, McCormack explains, “for Barth, both the humiliation of God and the
exaltation of the human have their ontological ground in the divine election of grace.”272
“[I]n its simplest and most comprehensive form” Barth writes, “the dogma of
predestination consists, then, in the assertion that the divine predestination is the election
of Jesus Christ.”273 While this statement appears to have little to do with anthropology, a
fuller understanding of Barth’s overall concept begins to emblazon anthropological
realities of this idea. This statement comes to significance in that God as Christ stands as
the electing God as well as Christ who stands as the one whom God has elected. While
this concept may appear to be a radical departure from traditional conceptions of
predestination, it is grounded in Chalcedonian Christology, wherein “the name of Jesus
Christ has within itself the double reference: the One called by this name is both very

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271

Barth, CD II/2, 94.
Bruce McCormack, Orthodox and Modern: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth (Grand Rapids: Baker
Academic, 2008), 237.
273
Barth, CD II/2, 103.
272

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God and very man. Thus the simplest form of the dogma may be divided at once into the
two assertions that Jesus Christ is the electing God, and that He is also elected man.”274
Christ’s two natures mean that Christ not only stands as the God who chooses but
the human who stands chosen by God. This appears to radically counter the more
individualistic concepts of election that have traditionally marked the Reformed
landscape. However, Barth notes that this shift is the result when one takes seriously
Christ’s two natures as fully God and fully human. When this happens it “crowds out and
replaces the idea of a decretum absolutum (absolute decree),”275 which is traditionally
conceived of as election.276 Predestination for Barth cannot be simply God choosing
humanity as is traditionally seen in Reformed thought;277 rather it is Christ standing as the
chosen one and the chooser.278 John Colwell accurately sums up Barth’s doctrine of
election by suggesting that it “informs us that God, who has determined Himself to be the
electing God in Jesus Christ, has determined Himself also to be the elected man in Jesus
Christ.”279 For the believer “election is election to a way of life.”280

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274

Barth, CD II/2, 103.
Barth, CD II/2, 103.
276
For example see J.I. Packer, Concise Theology (Carol Stream: Tyndale House Publishers, 1993), 149151, as well as Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Carlisle: Banner of Truth Trust, 2005), 109-125.
277
For an example see Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, trans. G. T. Thompson (Eugene: Wipf &
Stock, 2007), 154.
278
Barth pinpoints the location of the variation between his concept of election and the broad Reformed
tradition’s concept as represented by the writing of Calvin. Barth points out that “the electing God of
Calvin is a Dues nudus absconditius (purely hidden God). It is the not the Dues revelatus (Revealed God)
who is as such the Dues absconditus (hidden God), the eternal God. All the dubious features of Calvin’s
doctrine result from the basic failing that in the last analysis he separates God and Jesus Christ, thinking
that what was in the beginning with God must be sought elsewhere than in Jesus Christ. Thus with all his
forceful and impressive acknowledgement of the divine election of grace, ultimately he still passes by the
grace of God as it has appeared in Jesus Christ.” Barth, CD II.2, 111. Thus the significant differentiation
between Barth’s and Calvin’s concept of election stands in the fact that for Calvin election is an action of
God in His hiddeness, while for Barth, God elects in His act of revelation.
279
Colwell, Actuality and Provisionality, 246.
280
Webster, Holiness, 80.
275

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Humanity, Election and Relationality
Barth’s anti-individualistic concept of election takes its strongest root in an
ecclesiological understanding. As Barth opens §34 he states that “The election of grace,
as the election of Jesus Christ, is simultaneously the eternal election of the one
community of God by the existence of which Jesus Christ is to be attested to the whole
world and the whole world summoned to faith in Jesus Christ.”281 As such, God’s
election of humanity is first and foremost an election of His community of faith.
Humanity is elected in Christ and stands as elected within the Church community.282 This
ecclesiological election means that the individual stands chosen by God, but only in their
association with the elected body of believers, which is the body of Christ. It is in this
Christological community, and only in this community, that real humanity is made
apparent to the surrounding world. The message the Church has to communicate to the
world is the Gospel, and the truth of humanity in light of the Gospel; this is because “man
elected by God is man made participant by God in eternal salvation. It is this man whom
God’s community in its perfect, its Church form can reveal.”283 The elected individual is
thus elected as part of the elected ecclesial community. Individual identity cannot be
based on isolated definition, but instead the relationship with the human category, which
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281

Barth, CD II/2, 195.
Later in the same volume Barth points out that “If it is the case that this orientation of the Church’s
doctrine of predestination certainly did not arise apart from the earlier ways of secular individualism, it is
equally certain that as orientated in this way the doctrine is not merely one of those factors which have
paved the way for Pietism and Rationalism within the Church itself.” Barth, CD II/2, 308. For Barth this
concept of individualized election, is not exclusively tied to the theological tradition of the past, but with
the philosophical milieu that surrounded the development of this thought. In this individualistic concepts of
election are based upon the adoption of presuppositions that were based upon secular individualism. Thus
Barth points out that this concept of election would not have developed in its trajectory if not for the
writing of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the younger F. D. E. Schleiermacher, Søren Kierkegaard, Henrik Ibsen,
and Friederick Nietzsche. Barth, CD II/2, 308. As a result, the interplay between philosophical descriptions
of humanity and human freedom and theological descriptions of divine election become apparent. These
thinkers, as well as others were not only shaped by their respective Reformed theological setting, but also
worked to shape it.
283
Barth, CD II/2, 265.
282

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includes various social realties as well as the Church. The individual exists only in
relationship to humanity as a whole.284
Election and Divine-Human Agency
Barth’s concept of election has significant ramifications for his doctrine of
anthropology. This concept of election has two significant results for Barth’s doctrine of
anthropology. The first anthropological result is the possibility of human freedom as well
as clarity of understanding where previously there was only obscurity; second, this
concept of election overcomes a two-fold obscurity that results from the question mark
Barth posed against humanity
First, God’s election of humanity in Christ means humanity receives agency. As a
result of God’s choosing of humanity, humanity enters into the freedom of God, and thus
is able to respond to God, choosing God. Within this framework, human agency285 and
action286 is Christologically grounded in God’s election of humanity. As such, humanity
is able to choose God, or conversely to reject God, because God first chose us.287
Humanity can choose to live for God, to be truly human, or not. Ultimately this choice
only occurs subsequent to and because of God’s choosing for us.288 In §34 Barth shows
that there is a relationship between election and electing, or God’s choosing and
humanity’s choosing. “The election of man is his election in Jesus Christ, for Jesus Christ

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
284

Barth, CD II/2, 313.
Agency being the means and ability for humanity to act.
286
Action resulting from the agency provided by God. The Christological grounding not only creates the
possibility of human action but also but also grounds the reality of the individual’s implementation of
agency bringing forth action.
287
It is for this reason that Barth explains that the election of Christ means that God enters into a
compromise, in that He stand only to lose, while humanity stands only to gain. Barth, CD II/2, 162.
288
Barth, CD II/2, 193.
285

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is the eternally living beginning of man and the whole of creation. Electing means to elect
‘in Him’. And election means to be elected ‘in Him.’”289
Second, this concept of election overcomes a two-fold obscurity that results from
the question mark Barth earlier posed against humanity. While humanity’s fall causes a
significant rift of knowledge, obscuring knowledge of both God and humanity, this
Christological concept of election provides “a single and known form to the unknown
God and unknown man.”290 While humanity continues to stand under the shadow of
ignorance cast by sin, humanity is able to encounter divinely revealed truth of both God
and humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the single point where
humanity encounters both God and humanity, displayed at a human level. This side of the
parousia, humanity is unable to step out from under this shadow, but the light of divine
truth cuts through it, emblazing humanity in truth.
Election and Community
This ecclesiological aspect of Barth’s election means that real humanity is a
communal existence. True humanity cannot exist void of relationships with others but
only as part of the community that God has established.291 True humanity is humanity
existing in relationship, first with God and then with fellow humanity. To exist as human
means existence interwoven with another.292

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289

Barth, CD II/2, 195.
Barth, CD II/2, 147.
291
Here Barth’s foreshadows what he will clearly announce in volume III.2 “si quis dixerit hominem esse
solitarium, anathema sit (If anyone will have said that man is solitary, let him be anathema).” Barth, CD
III/2, 312.
292
Here Barth’s concept of anthropology is a direct affront to much
290

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For Barth, Christ must stand as both subject and object, as both elector and elected,
as a result of Scripture, and it is here that the anthropological outcomes of this concept
become apparent in a radically Christological fashion.
If the testimony of Holy Scripture concerning the man Jesus Christ is true, that this
man does stand before God above and on behalf of others, then this man is no mere
creature but He is also the Creator, and His own electing as Creator must have
preceded His election as creature. In one and the same person He must be both
elected man and the electing God.293
This dual role of Christ means that He is
the object of the eternal divine decision and foreordination. Jesus Christ, then, is
not merely one of the elect but the elect of God. From the very beginning (from
eternity itself), as elected man He does not stand alongside the rest of the elect,
but before and above them as the One who is originally and properly the Elect.294
Christ, as the eternally elected, stands as the eternal man, the human that defines
humanity. In this definition, humanity is not simply that which is experienced in temporal
reality, but it is the life of Christ and it was realized in Christ’s earthly life. Humanity
stands elect in Christ because Christ has been elected and stands for humanity generally.
Moving forward, human life on earth is a reflection of true humanity, though it is
marred by humanity’s sinful temporal reality. Barth is able to be positive about humanity
and human nature in eternity. However, Barth’s optimism has nothing to do with human
work, but with Christ’s reality. As Barth states “For teleologically the election of the man
Jesus carries within itself the election of a creation which is good according to the
positive will of God and of man as fashioned after the divine image and foreordained to
the divine likeness (reflection).”295 Thus, the individual stands in the possibility of
goodness when it stands in the shadow of Christ; sinfulness thus is the refusal of
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
293

Barth, CD II/2, 116.
Barth, CD II/2, 116.
295
Barth, CD II/2, 122. In this Barth takes Paul’s use of !2#,. seriously in Titus 2:11 when he states Paul
states that “for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all. (NRSV) Emphasis added.
294

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humanity to stand in this shadow. However, when humanity steps out and defines its own
reality in its own image, in this humanity it thus acts as God.
Sin, for Barth, is a denial of true human reality296 that results in a break in the
relationship between God and humanity and subsequently a break in the relationship
between fellow humans. However, there is the possibility, in and through this
Christological election, of redemption of humanity. Christ’s work on the cross “when
God chose as His throne the malefactor’s cross, when the Son of God bore what the son
of man ought to have borne, took place once and for all in the fulfilment of God’s eternal
will, and it can never be reversed.”297 God both elected and rejected Jesus Christ as both
God and human. In Christ humanity was elected by God and while God rejected the
divine Christ. Through this act of divine rejection Jesus Christ paid the price no human
could, while remaining truly human.
Because of Christ’s substitution, Barth recognizes that
there is no condemnation — literally none — for those who are in Christ Jesus. For
this reason faith in the divine predestination as such and per se means faith in the
non-rejection of man, or disbelief in his rejection. Man is not rejected. In God’s
eternal purpose it is God Himself who is rejected in His Son.298
This rejection means that God is able to elect humanity and humanity is able to stand
again as true humanity because of the work of Christ on the cross. This does not mean
that fallen humanity no longer exists, for Adam’s fall remains a reality for Barth.
Humans, even redeemed humans, are still sinners. However, all of this is outweighed by
the power of Christ’s resurrection because of the power of human life that has overcome

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296

Because sin is the refusal of humanity to stand in its own reality sin is thus an ontological impossibility.
Barth, CD II/2, 67.
298
Barth, CD II/2, 167.
297

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the ultimate result of sin, that is death. Barth states “as the result of this resurrection they
belong already to the vanished past.”299
The Possibility of Rejection
Barth sees election as a Christological openness of God to humanity, however, he
does not deny the possibility of rejection of the election. Humanity can exist in a form
that does not conform to the truly human image of Christ. While the concept of rejection
within predestination (damnation), has caused great strife and stress among believers,
communities, and theological traditions, Barth conceives of rejection in a form that
uniquely retains both divine and human freedom.
God has elected humanity in Christ into freedom in order to enter into or to choose,
relationality with God. Humanity can choose to reject God, which is a rejection of God’s
freedom for humanity. John Colwell describes this action as an act of resisting election,
the man who resists his election in Jesus Christ is the man who refuses his pardon
by attempting to turn it into judgment and condemnation. God still says Yes to him
but he can only hear this Yes as a destructive No. He hates and despises the grace
of God, he will not live by it, he only receives it as non-grace, as wrath and as
judgment.300
It is for this reason that Barth states “a ‘rejected’ man is one who isolates himself from
God by resisting his election as it has taken place in Jesus Christ. God is for him; but he
is against God. God is gracious to him; but he is ungrateful to God.”301 For this reason
rejection is linked to isolation, a fracturing of relationship, but a fracturing that the
individual instigates. “The man who is isolated over against God is as such rejected by
God. But to be this man can only be by the godless man’s own choice.”302 Separation
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299

Barth, CD II/2, 173.
Colwell, Actuality and Provisionality, 255.
301
Barth, CD II/2, 449.
302
Barth, CD II/2, 306.
300

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from God, following his work of redemption is a possibility, but it is always a result of
human action.303 For Barth, like Emil Brunner, “Sinful man remains ‘a person’ – that is, a
responsible subject – but is ‘an anti-personal’ person.” 304
As a result of the social nature of election, true humanity can never exist outside of
the relational aspects of this election. To be human in Barth’s eyes is always to be in
relationship, first with God and subsequently with fellow humans. Any human being that
exists outside of this communal reality exists outside of the realm for which it was
created to exist. Humanity that exists outside of this divinely provided experience of
relationship ceases to be truly human and thus in-human.

The Consequences of Human Rejection of Divine Humanity
As a result of his concept of election and the social and ecclesial realities of it,
Barth perceives the isolation of the individual as a supreme danger, not only eternally, but
also temporally. Barth understands non-social concepts of humanity as isolating and
godless, which can lead to a de-humanization through various political concepts of
humanity that degrade the whole human in favour of emphasizing a particular aspect of
human reality. As Barth pronounces “let the ‘individual’ take warning! He has the power
to be isolated and godless .... The godless man is ripe for every kind of authoritarianism
and collectivism, as for every other dishonouring, perversion and destruction of his

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303

It is at the point of the actuality of humanity’s status as rejected becomes convoluted in Barth’s writing.
Barth states that humanity “can only be potentially rejected.” Barth, CD II/2, 349. It appears at this point as
though Barth conceives of this human initiated rejection as an act that will bring humanity to the point of
crisis, and thus an understanding of their need for election and redemption.
304
O’Donovan, “Man in the Image of God,” 437.

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human existence.”305 Barth perceives that it is this dangerous possibility as the source for
destructive socio-political constructs that deform humanity.306
Summary
Barth’s work on the doctrine of God within the second full volumes of his Church
Dogmatics contains significant aspects of his anthropological concept, namely the
distinctive doctrine of election. The concept of election is strongly anti-modern and thus
overcomes many of the weaknesses that are contrived from an individualistic mind-set.
For Barth, election is first and foremost the election of the one individual Jesus Christ. It
is in this one man, who stands as the essence of humanity, that the whole of humanity
experiences election in and through the election of the ecclesial community. Within
God’s election there is always election to choose, a choice to respond to God’s divine
election.
God’s choosing of humanity means that humanity is able to enter into truly human
freedom, a freedom that is true to humanity’s created reality. This freedom means that
humanity is given agency through God, and this agency first means that humanity is able
to respond to God, to choose in light of God’s choosing. Moreover, humanity is able to
truly know itself, divine election and subsequent divine revelation means that humanity is
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305

Barth, CD II/2, 318.
Writing this volume at the close of World War II, Barth positioned his conception of humanity as firmly
counter to both Communist and Fascist conceptions, the two powerful ideologies in the world at the time.
Barth perceived that communism understood the true nature of humanity to be found in production, while
fascism conceived of humanity constituted solely by terms of race, language, and history. Barth, CD II/2,
312. Barth’s warning of the dangers of these two particular concepts of humanity that surrounded him at
the time of his authorship of Church Dogmatics II/2 are just as appropriate in the early twenty-first century.
While contemporary consumerism may not feed into the mentality of a totalitarian state or collective
action, it does isolate the individual from the social reality that humanity was created to experience.
Understanding humanity solely in terms of consumers devalues all human action outside the ability and
willingness to purchase goods and services. As well the rise of radical environmental and right winged
Darwinist views that equate humanity with an animal nature overlooks the unique status of humanity as
existing in relationality with each other and ultimately with God.
306

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able to overcome the limitations of human knowledge, and divine revelation allows
humanity to comprehend both God and itself as they truly are.
God’s election of humanity is an invitation for humanity to choose Him. As such,
God’s election creates the possibility of human rejection. Rejection of God severs the
divine human relationship as well as inter-human relationships. Because of the loss of
relationship with God, humanity loses sight of the divinely revealed truth about
themselves. This human rejection of the divine election ultimately results in the loss of
self-perception and understanding.
In this framework, true human reality, relationality, freedom, and agency are the
results of divine election. Humanity exists in the freedom to choose because God first
chose humanity. The concept of divine election continues as a theme throughout Barth’s
Church Dogmatics, particularly surrounding humanity’s reality as created, as seen in his
doctrine of creation.
Barth’s Anthropology in The Doctrine of Creation
In volume III of his Church Dogmatics Barth considers the doctrine of creation.
Creation as it truly exists in light of the revelation of the Creator. Barth first discusses the
relationship between God, humanity, and creation generally in III/1 before turning his
attention to the reality of humanity in light of His revelation in III/2, which reaches its
zenith in his discussion of the reality of true humanity or “Real Man” in §44.3. It is the
lead up to §44.3 that this section examines, first by discussing the Christological concept
of humanity within Barth’s description of humanity’s relationship to the rest of creation,
and humanity’s relationship to God in creation.

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Christological Humanity in Relationship to the Creator and Creation
The Creation as a whole exists under both a divine “No” and divine “Yes,” which
are both a reality, connected but not obliterating each other. The created world exists
under rejection as a result of the fall. The natural world, alongside humanity, thus suffers
the dramatic results of the fall; the created world is exposed to the horrors of war, death,
and pollution. “The necessary rejection of everything which by His own nature God
cannot be; and consequently the necessary rejection of everything which again by His
own nature God cannot will and create, and cannot even tolerate as a reality distinct from
Himself.”307 Yet, this rejection is Christologically tied to God’s redemption of it. “But the
power of this twofold No is only the recoil of His equally twofold Yes: His Yes to
Himself and to the reality which, although not identical with Him, was willed and created
by Him.”308 In this God brought about the redemption of creation, through His
redemption of humanity. God’s redemption of created humanity through the human
Christ is also God’s redemption of creation as a whole because of humanity’s status
among creation.309 In this way humanity and creation as a whole cannot be seen as having
a nature of sin. While creation is marred by humanity’ sin, it is also, more importantly,
marked by God’s redemption in humanity.310
All of creation is made good through God’s relationship to it in His creation of it.
By this dynamic the creature receives actualization and justification in the fact that God

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307

Barth, CD III/1, 330.
Barth, CD III/1, 330.
309
Barth, CD III/1, 370.
310
This two-fold reality allows Barth to overcome and critique the pessimistic descriptions of creation of
both Marcion and the later German Philosopher Authur Schopenhaur, who both conceived of creation as
evil. Barth suggests that while these two thinkers did not hold the same concepts of humanity or creation
they both these two start and finish at the same location, which is tied to both other their docetic
Christologies. Barth, CD III/1, 335-337.
308

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creates it.311 This means that because of creation’s relationship to God it truly exists.
Creation is not an illusion but reality. “If we are the creation of a real Creator, we
ourselves are real.”312 Humanity gains an understanding of itself as it truly is only when it
considers who it is in light of God. Such a divinely rooted humanity allows Barth to stand
at a distance from optimistic descriptions of humanity313 without surrendering all of
creation to a pessimism that was apparent in the second-century heterodox theologian
Marcion and the nineteenth-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.314
All throughout Barth’s description of humanity, the divine “No” brings about the
possibility and reality of a divine “Yes.” It is here, in Barth’s doctrine of creation where
Barth now announces the “Yes” over the “No”. “God created man to lift him in His own
Son into fellowship with Himself. This is the positive meaning of human existence and
all existence. But this elevation presupposes a wretchedness of human and all existence
which His own Son will share and bear.”315 Both elevation and wretchedness, the “Yes”
and the “No,” are Christological in that Christ “will share and bare”316 this wretchedness
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311

Barth, CD III/1, 340.
Barth, CD III/1, 346. In this statement Barth stands against the epistemological system of Rene
Descartes, who suggested that certainty of reality existed in one’s ability to doubt. Barth critiques Descartes
use of “presupposing the validity of doubt in his statement that We know, for it is quite obvious and
Descartes himself expressly says so, that in fact he never does doubt these presuppositions, and this being
the case he invalidates the proof of his own existence which is based upon this doubt.” Barth, CD III/1,
362. Here Barth also stands at a great distance from his German contemporary Martin Heidegger, both of
whom can be seen as rejecting and rebelling against the scholastic natural theology that surrounded them in
late ninetieth and early twentieth century German theology and philosophy. While Barth understands
humanity as revealed in the one human, Christ, Heidegger portrays a radically anti-humanistic concept of
meaning, and thus humanity, being encountered in nature. “one is simply a place-holder—the site where
Nature discloses itself.” Kerr, Immortal Longings, 66.
313
Here Barth critiques eighteenth-century style anthropocentric optimism. Barth notes that this project
emphasized humanity’s ability to overcome the ills of the world, as riddled with a fundamental error: “The
whole optimistic thesis obviously depends on the legitimacy and force of this mode of entry. But this mode
of entry is purely and simply an act of human self-confidence .... The classical man of the 18th century has
this self-confidence, or he believes as if he had. The optimistic thesis stands with his absolutism (L’état,
c’est moi). For its sustaining it does not really need either the universe or God.” Barth, CD III/1 410.
314
Barth, CD III/1, 335-337.
315
Barth, CD III/1, 376.
316
Barth, CD III/1, 376.
312

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for the elevation of humanity and creation. For Barth, the whole of creation has a
Christological reality in that “everything is created for Jesus Christ and His death and
resurrection, from the very outset everything must stand under this twofold and
contradictory determination.”317 Christ is thus the reason for creation and creation thus
shares in the results of both rejection and reconciliation.
It is in this reconciliation that Barth already hints at the possibility of human
volition as a result of the covenant relationship between humanity and Christ. Humanity
is able to understand and act in light of Christ’s revelation of its human reality.318 Christ
makes a way for humanity to act that is true and real as a result of the truthful divinehuman acts of the divine-human Christ.
Humanity in Creation
Barth conceives of humanity as the chief of all creation,319 but he does not place
humanity at the centre of the universe. Such a thought does not deviate from Barth’s
theocentric theology in which humanity exists because of its relationship to God.
Humanity exists as ruler and caretaker of creation because of God’s work of revelation to
humanity through His Word.320 Humanity thus exists in relationship with God as a result
of God’s work. Similarly, it exists in relationship with the surrounding creation because
of God’s work. Created humanity shares the status as created because of God’s work.
God created man and women as well as fish in the sea and birds of the air.321 An analogy
may be seen in the solar system: humanity stands as chief among the other planets, but
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317

Barth, CD III/1, 376.
Barth, CD III/1, 383-384.
319
Psalm 8:4-8.
320
Barth, CD III/2, 3.
321
Barth, CD III/2, 3.
318

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humanity along with the rest of creation circles the sun, which is God. This reality holds
two truths for humanity that they cannot escape. First, humanity is linked to the rest of
creation through its status as creature; that is, created by God. Second, humanity is linked
to God and dependent upon Him because their foundation is in Him.
Barth’s description of humanity in the world, as “Man in the Cosmos” leads up to
Barth’s definitive description of true humanity, “Real Man” in §44. This current
description of humanity is concerned with “the man who in the cosmos is confronted by
another reality, and who is more conscious and sure of its true and genuine reality the
more he is conscious and sure of his own humanity and therefore his own reality by the
encounter of man with man and God and man.”322 Here Barth is not attempting to
describe a cosmology, a scientific description of the scientific realities of creation,323 but
to describe creation as God has revealed it.324
Barth’s description of humanity as the object of theological knowledge continues to
define humanity in light of the realdialektik in the lead up to his description of humanity
as it has been called to exist in Christ. This dialectic, the gap that stands between
humanity and God, has been apparent throughout Barth’s description of humanity since
The Epistle to the Romans. Barth’s point remains strikingly similar to the resounding
“No” of Romans, for when “man is truly and seriously viewed in the light of the Word of
God, he can be understood only as the sinner who has covered his own creaturely being
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322

Barth, CD III/2, 4.
Barth states that the attempt to explain the world in scientific terms from revelation is a corruption of
both the science and the divine revelation. “By the nature of its object, dogmatics has neither the occasion
nor the duty to become a technical cosmology or Christian world-view.” Barth, CD III/2, 6. This does not
mean that dogmatic descriptions of creation cannot be allied with various world-views and cosmologies, as
it “has never yet engendered its own distinctive world-view, but in this respect has always made more or
less critical use of alien views.” Barth, CD III/2, 7.
324
Barth, counter to much of North American theology of the twentieth century, states that “the exact
science of man cannot be the enemy of the Christian confession.” Barth, CD III/2, 24.
323

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with shame, and who cannot therefore stand before God even though he is the creature of
God.”325 However, it is important to note that it is humanity that covers its reality in
sinfulness and that the essence of humanity is not sin but is affected by humanity’s act.326
While humanity’s sin does not completely obliterate humanity’s essence, it does
completely obscure it from human reflection. This is a continuation of Barth’s view of
humanity as “covered” by sin in Romans. Though humanity’s essence remains intact, it is
continually filtered through sinfulness.
We do not have in any case the direct vision of a sinless being of man fulfilling its
original determination. There is no point at which we are not brought up against
that corruption and depravity ... [thus] it must be our aim to view [humanity] in the
light of the Word of God, and therefore as the sinner which he is in his
confrontation with God.327
As Barth has shown throughout his writings, humanity continues to exist in a
reality that is utterly marred by sin. Humanity must stand under the “No” of God. “On the
one side, the embracing perception shows us that man is sinful, and indeed totally
radically sinful.”328 However, this sinful reality is not the sum of human reality, as
humanity is created in the image of God and thus is never removed from the reality of
God’s grace, through Jesus Christ. “If man is the object of divine grace, his selfcontradiction may be radical and total, but it is not the last word that has been spoken
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325

Barth, CD III/2, 27.
Barth condemns all discussion of human essence as equated with sin in his discussion of the Lutheran
theologian Matthias Flacius, who understood the doctrine of original sin, that is after the fall, to have
become humanity’s very substance; thereby subsuming all that is human. “Flacius called original sin and
only one – the theological – form of human substance. What he rightly rejected was the idea of the
synergists (and later the Formula of Concord) that it was merely an accidens (accident). It this Aristotelian
terminology was adopted, sin could only be called the theological form of man’s substance.” Barth, CD
III/2, 27. For Barth, humanity’s essence was created good and stands in the light of redemption, while
existing under the shadow of sin. God’s power in His creation remains while the devil’s power also remains
apparent. Humanity stands both under the “No” of sin and the “Yes” of God’s redemption. Barth agrees
with the sixteenth-century Lutheran Formula of Concord, which Barth suggests “rightly emphasised against
Flacius. Glory must be given to God by distinguishing His work and the creation of man from the devil’s
work which has corrupted him.” Barth, CD III/2, 28.
327
Barth, CD III/2, 29.
328
Barth, CD III/2, 31.
326

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about him.”329 Humanity, in sin, turns from God, but is never removed from the
possibility and power of God.
For with God and from God he has a future which has not been decided by this selfcontradiction he must inevitably incur, but which by the faithfulness and mercy of
God is definitely decided in a very different way from what he deserves. If he is the
object of God’s favour, his self-contradiction may be radical and total, but it cannot
even be the first word about him.330
Human sinfulness may be total, but it is not supreme, “For the fact that he covered his
creaturely being with infamy cannot mean that he has annulled or destroyed it.”331
Barth shows that in God there is a future for humanity; however, this future is not
the anthropo-centric future of modern optimism, but of a theo-centric realism.332
The arrogance of all attempts not to take sin as seriously as God Himself takes it is
one thing, but its true corrective does not lie in the false humility of a resignation
which would take it seriously in a way in which God Himself obviously does not,
but in the true humility of faith which is satisfied with, and adopts itself to, the way
in which God Himself takes it seriously.333
Humanity should not be defined by sin, but any attempt to define humanity outside of
God’s work is itself sin and thus a fractured description of the human. In this Barth takes
sin seriously, without surrendering the human over to its power. Humanity is made
whole, but only when seen through the humility of Christ.334
It is in looking to Jesus Christ that humanity gains a clear understanding of itself.
Following Barth, any full and true description of the essence of humanity must be a
Christological description of humanity. Barth suggests that not only is anthropology a
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
329

Barth, CD III/2, 31.
Barth, CD III/2, 31.
331
Barth, CD III/2, 31.
332
It is an understanding of what life truly is in light of God’s divine revelation.
333
Barth, CD III/2, 37.
334
This relationship between God and humanity restores dignity to humanity, a dignity that is divinely
given and allows theological anthropology, particularly Reformed forms of theological anthropology to
move beyond the disgust that Cynthia Rigby perceives as steaming from an over emphasis upon humanity’s
total depravity. Rigby, “The Real Word Really Became Real Flesh”, 15, 130.
330

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possible result of Christological contemplation, but that “we cannot really look at Jesus
without – in a certain sense through Him – seeing ourselves also.”335 Barth’s
Chalcedonian framework means that anthropology is the only possible result of
Christological reflection. Humanity cannot separate itself from the image that it has been
made in. “In Him are the peace and clarity which are not in ourselves.”336 Such clarity is
possible in Christ because “in Him is the human nature created by God without the selfcontradiction which affects us and without the self-deception by which we seek to escape
this our shame. In Him is human nature without human sin.”337 This clarity provides an
image of who and what humanity was created to be, real humanity, which Barth will
cover in the next paragraph of his Church Dogmatics. To this point, Barth has
Christologically cleared away the sinful clutter of human existence and paved the way for
a discussion of what is possible for humanity.
Summary
In the initial sections of volume III338 of his Church Dogmatics, Barth discusses the
reality of humanity in the context of creation as a whole and humanity’s relationship to
God as His creation. These two themes, building upon Barth’s work in previous volumes
most notably on the topics of revelation and elect, provide him with the ability to discuss
true humanity in §44.
In this section Barth views the whole of creation as existing under the reality of the
dialectic that exists between it and God. Creation groans under the weight of the divine
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
335

Barth, CD III/2, 48.
Barth, CD III/2, 48. In this Barth follows Athanasius who states that “the good God has given
[humanity] a share in His own Image, that is, in our Lord Jesus Christ, and has made even themselves after
the same Image and Likeness.” Athanasius, Incarnation, 38.
337
Barth, CD III/2, 48.
338
Barth, CD III.1, §40-43.
336

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condemnation, however, this is a groaning that exists within the context of God’s
redemption that God has initiated within humanity and thus within creation as a whole.
Barth’s description of humanity in this section is based on his understanding of both
creation and humanity existing under the divine “No,” just as it did for Barth in his
Epistle to the Romans. Furthermore, in both compositions, the “No” brings about the
possibility and reality of the divine “Yes.”
Humanity exists as the chief of all creation, yet humanity is not the centre of
creation. It exists instead in this role because of its unique relationship to God, because
God created humanity in His image and stood alongside humanity in the person of Jesus
Christ. This relationship restores to humanity the dignity that God created them with.
Barth’s concept of a restored humanity opens up the possibility of a humanity that
is not defined by sin, but defined by its relationship to Christ, and thus it can exist in a
truly human reality. It is at this point that Barth’s work reaches its zenith allowing Barth
to move ahead in §44 to positively define human in light of the person of Christ, which is
“real man” or true humanity.
Conclusion

!

This chapter examined the continued development of Barth’s anthropological
concepts throughout his Church Dogmatics leading up to §44. While the theological
accents may have changed,339 Barth’s work in these sections of the Church Dogmatics340
has continued to develop the concepts that appear, what John Webster suggests “was
present in nuce” in his earlier writing, most notable The Epistle to the Romans.341
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339

Mikkelsen, Reconciled Humanity, 25.
Barth, CD I/1-III/2, §43.
341
Webster, Moral Theology, 30-31.
340

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In his doctrine of revelation, Barth develops a concept of humanity that rejects
Cartesian self-derived certainty, in favour of a concept of humanity based on the divine
revelation of the Incarnation of the divine human Christ.342 As a result, human selfunderstanding continues to be a possibility, but a possibility that is only available as
result of God’s work. Humanity comes to understand itself only when it encounters itself
in light of Christ’s relationship to them. When humanity comes to understand itself in
relationship to Christ, humanity is able to understand itself as free. Such a freedom is
radically different than liberal concepts of individual removal of limitation, rather it is a
divinely created possibility. This Christological understanding of anthropology also
means that humanity must be understood as rational and embodied, but that neither of
these defines humanity as a whole. Finally, this Christological revelation means that
humanity is defined relationally and cannot be estranged either from God or its social
realities without destroying the image from which it was created.
Within the context of Barth’s doctrine of God he describes how anthropology
should be considered a result of God’s person and work. Barth describes the
anthropological reality that is created as a result of God’s election of humanity in and
through Christ. Jesus Christ, who is God, elects Himself as the human, which allows
humanity generally to share in God’s grace. For Barth, this election of humanity is
brought into relationship with God, through the two natures of Christ. When Christ
creates an openness to humanity, it provides an opportunity for human agency. This
agency means the possibility of humanity to act for God as well as against God. In this
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act against God, humanity isolates itself from God, ceasing to be the truly human.
Election means that God overcomes the question mark posed by the realdialektik
between God and humanity, that we have seen throughout Barth’s description of
humanity in light of God.
Finally, Barth describes his Christological anthropology in relationship to creation.
Barth is clear that all creation, including humanity, is based upon its status as created.
This means that while human sin marks the whole of creation, it remains to be defined by
and in light of the Creator. Barth perceives that humanity stands above all creation
because God dwells in human form in Christ. Yet, humanity cannot ever see itself as
removed from its status as created. It has a shared status with the entire cosmos because
of its shared Creator. It is this relationship that has brought about the redemption of
humanity and creation and has created the opportunity for humanity to envision the truly
human reality, in the “real man” of Christ.

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CHAPTER 3: HUMANITY AS THE CREATURE OF GOD
In §44 Barth depicts true humanity as a reality that exists in a manner capable of
responding to God’s election. Humanity’s response is a personal and responsible action
that proves itself capable of fulfilling God’s electing call upon the human.343 Volume
III/2, §44 in particular, represents a pattern of argumentation that is fundamental to
Barth’s anthropology, but also to his dogmatics as a whole. Carrying this observation
further, Webster suggests that it is “namely the conviction that as creator and creature
God and humanity are neither identical nor absolutely uncreated but rather realities which
exist in an ordered relation of giver and recipient of life and grace.”344
The idea of humanity’s ability to respond to God’s election seems at first to counter
Luther’s doctrine of Sola Gratia. This apparent conflict stems from perception that Barth
views humanity as having the ability within itself to bring itself into the salvation that
God offers. But, such a perception mitigates the Christologically conditioned concept of
humanity that Barth has already showed throughout the previous volumes of Church
Dogmatics as well as his earlier Epistle to the Romans. Humanity’s ability to respond to
God is grounded in the election of true man, the person of Jesus Christ. Subsequently,
there is a provision of faith for humanity, which allows the individual to encounter the
divine freedom that God shares with humanity in Christ. Such Christological aspects of
Barth’s anthropology illuminate the possibility of the human to act for all humanity,
allowing humanity to enter into His life. As a result of being with Christ, the truly
Christian life is the life of Christ, the real man.
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343
344

Barth, CD III/2, 55.
John Webster, “Creation and Humanity,” 101.

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This chapter explores Barth’s euphoric discussion of “Man as the Creature of God”
as it is found in §44 of Church Dogmatics. Maintaining Barth’s intended outline, this
chapter is made up of three significant sections beginning with a discussion centred
around what it means for Christ to stand as the image of humanity before God in order to
understand how Christ exists as the truly human individual. Next, this chapter will
explore Barth’s definition of human phenomena – humanity in general – in light of his
Christological emphasis. Finally, this chapter explores Barth’s ultimate description of
humanity, which is based on the ontological determination that is grounded in the one
man Jesus Christ. This chapter will seek to explore the core of Barth’s Christological
anthropology. Through this exploration this chapter will seek to explain what it means
that Jesus Christ exists as fully human before God and what does this reality mean for
humanity generally.
Jesus, Humanity for God
§44 further develops Barth’s Christological anthropology.345 As such, Barth seeks
to outline the form, character, and limits of what he terms “real man.”346 When discussing
true humanity, Barth speaks of humanity as “a creature of God.”347 In this way, Barth
discusses true human nature that is revealed in Christ.348 It is this Christ whom the Nicene
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345

Barth emphatically continues that at no point, even here at the description of humanity, “we must desist
from any attempt to give a direct answer to the anthropological question, and apply the Christological basis
of anthropology.” Barth, CD III/2, 55.
346
Barth’s term is man is intended to be universal and not necessarily particular male-ness. Because of this,
this chapter will use the term true humanity, in place of real man, when possible. It should be understood
that within the context of this study, “true humanity” and “real man” are terms that are seen as
interchangeable.
347
Barth, CD III/2, 55.
348
Barth is able to describe humanity as such because of the transcendent nature of the God-man Jesus
Christ. In this Barth follows Athanasius who states that: “through this union of the immortal Son of God
with out human nature, all men were clothed with incorruption in the promise of the resurrection. For the
solidarity of mankind is such that, by virtue of the Word’s indwelling in a single human body, the
corruption which goes with death has lost its power over all.” Athanasius, Incarnation, 35. Athanasius was
ultimately concerned that it was “the truly divine Son of the Father who became man and as man lived a

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Creed describes as Very God of Very God, as well as the Chalcedonian’s definition that
he is also “being of one substance with us in relation to his humanity, and like us in all
things apart from sin”349 as stated in the Chalcedonian definition.350 Christ lived a fully
human life, thus “He is a man among men and in humanity.”351
Mikkelsen proposes that Barth’s Christological anthropology attempts to balance
both Alexandrian and Antiochian types of Christology, wherein the deity and humanity
of Christ is equally contributory.352 By this principle Barth is able to view anthropology
as dependent upon divine relationality that exists within the person of Jesus Christ.
Therefore, God exists in a relationship with the truly human. As Calvin earlier stated in
his Institutes of the Christian Religion, “Only [H]e who was true God and true man could
bridge the gulf between God and ourselves.”353
Instead of looking at the experience of human phenomena, Barth urges thinkers in
their descriptions of humanity to “desist from any attempt to give a direct answer to the
anthropological question, and apply the Christological basis of anthropology.”354 As a
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
human life, ultimately dying on the cross and rising bodily from the dead.” Thomas Weinandy, Athanasius:
A Theological Introduction (Hampsire: Ashgate, 1988), 81. This has three significant outcomes for
Athanasius, which are later echoed here in Barth’s writing. First, it must be the true Son of God who is
human, second it must be true humanity that is the Son of God as there is no value in upholding the divinity
of the Son if that Son is not actually human, nor is there any value in holding to the Son’s humanity if He is
not also God. Third the Son of God must truly be human. “Here the concern is that the Son of God in
‘becoming’ man must actually terminate in the truth that he ontologically is man. Man is what the Son of
God is.” Weinandy, Athanasius, 81-82.
349
“The Caleceonian Definition of the Christian Faith (451)” in The Christian Theology Reader, 3rd ed. ed.
Alister McGrath (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 281.
350
In light of this Chalcedonian understanding, Daniel Migliore notes that “Karl Barth is arguably the most
creative defender and reinterpreter of Chalcedon among twentieth-century theologians.” Daniel Migliore,
“Christology in Context: The Doctrinal and Contextual Task of Christianity Today,” Interpretation 49
(1995): 243.
351
Barth, CD III/2, 55. In this Barth asserts that Jesus Christ was a man, a true man. Barth does not suggest,
like popular descriptions of Jesus, that He is either milquetoast or a lout or a Superman. To suggest that
Christ is anything other than a true human who lived a truly human life would be to enter into the docetic
error. Barth, CD III/2, 58.
352
Mikkelsen, Reconciled Humanity, 148.
353
Calvin, Institutes, I, 2, XII, 464.
354
Barth, CD III/2, 55.

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result, Barth looks to Scripture for descriptions of Jesus Christ, which stand as the basis
for his definition of true humanity.355 Barth explains, “One answer which immediately
presents itself is that the nature of man is to be observed and established in its history as
determined by Him.”356 This answer, given by Christ, means that true human nature as
well as history is shown in Christ alone. Scripture provides an image of humanity as it
was created to exist, living on earth. The Gospels, as well as Scripture broadly, serve as
descriptions of human action on earth as it has not been experienced in the whole of
human history since the fall of humanity. It is in the Gospels that humanity can and must
look to find accurate descriptions of the life they were created to live.
Within the Gospel narratives, Jesus speaks of Himself as “I am,” “primarily and
predominantly as the Way: not as the beginning or the end of the Way; but as the Way
itself .... Hence He does not stand as Subject somewhere behind or alongside this coming;
He is Subject as this coming takes place.”357 In this explanation “the Way” is the current
and continual life that humanity is called to; it is life in Christ. Furthermore, Barth takes
Jesus’ words seriously when he describes Himself as 3&4 or life. Jesus’ life is the life
humanity is called to live and brought into through the faithful work of God. This life is
not a life that is “self-sufficient but the life which imparts itself and redeems from
death.”358 In Jesus’ “I Am” titles, Barth sees the human reality of life that is true
humanity.

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355

Barth looks chiefly to 1 Corinthians 1:30 and John 14:6. In these Barth sees the concepts of wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, as well as “the Way” as not simply being ideas but as all
referring to a history established in Christ. Barth, CD III/2, 56.
356
Barth, CD III/2, 55.
357
Barth, CD III/2, 56.
358
Barth, CD III/2, 56.

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Continuing to follow the language of Chalcedon, Barth perceives no separation
between the human and divine aspects of Christ. While Christ exists as fully God, He is
also fully man. Because of this union “there is no neutral humanity in Jesus, which might
give Him the choice of not doing what He does, or of doing something different in its
place.”359 As a result, all of Christ’s actions were fully human actions. Christ could not
move outside of humanity and thus His life. Jesus reveals the specific determinations and
features of humanity. Yet because Jesus is the subject of these determinations and
features of humanity, “He is not conditioned or limited by them. But in so far as
humanity is His it is He who transcends and therefore limits and conditions these features
and determinations.”360 Humanity does not serve as a burden to Christ, in that His very
essence is the humanity that collectively human beings were created to inhabit. Instead
the work of Christ,361 along with His human existence, is not alien or imposed upon Him,
but results from His essence. As a result, it is impossible to separate Christ’s works from
His person.362
Self-Care in True Humanity
Humanity is supremely and utterly described by the life of Jesus Christ in Barth’s
theology. Jesus, like all humans, experienced strife, struggle, and fatigue. However, while
humanity seeks pleasure for itself in order to overcome the results of these experiences,
“Jesus as a creature finds life and nourishment in the fact that He stands in this
relationship with the Creator.”363 It is in this way that Christ lives the true life of the
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359

Barth, CD III/2, 57.
Barth, CD III/2, 59.
361
Work pertaining to that which He does for and on behalf of God. In this Barth differs from Calvin who
suggests that the life of Christ is in actuality an earnest denial of the human self. Calvin, Institutes, I, 3,VII,
691.
362
Barth, CD III/2, 61.
363
Barth, CD III/2, 64.
360

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creature. Jesus, as a true creature exists in glory, though it is not a humanly derived glory.
Rather, Jesus exists in divine glory that is endowed to Him because “He stands so utterly
in the service of God.”364 Relationship and service do not tax the person of Jesus, but
rather provide His nourishing daily bread.
While Jesus, as a human, stands within the inner relationship of the Godhead, He is
not obliterated but substantiated through this relationship. Sinful humanity cannot see
God and survive, but true humanity thrives in this perichoretic relationship. Barth admits,
“oddly enough this mystery of the participation of Jesus in the Godhead is not at all the
dissolution but the very foundation of His true humanity.”365 In this relationship true
humanity finds its consummation in relationship with God. Not that Christ stands as
sinful humanity, but that He exists as the humanity we were created to be, as part of this
Christ stands beside and before sinful humanity. For true humanity, love and service are
not a strain, but a state of homeostasis. This being with God in the world is what
humanity was created for. Just as humanity’s first parents walked in the Garden of Eden
with the Lord, so true humanity exists in a state of rest and sustenance in His relationship
with the other members of the Triune God.
Christological Humanity within the Cosmos
Having described the Christological human as He exists in the world, Barth sets out
to describe the distinctive characteristics of this Christological human among all of
creation within the entire cosmos. Barth creates a list of six unique traits that build upon
each other and sums up his framework for a description of true humanity among creation
that is both Christological and anthropological. These six features are derived from
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364
365

Barth, CD III/2, 64.
Barth, CD III/2, 66.

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Scripture’s description of the real man Jesus Christ, and they allow individuals to
conceive what a truly human life in this world looks like.
First, Barth points to Christ’s two natures as the basis for understanding what true
humanity is. He writes, “It would be impossible to see and think about man, i.e., the man
Jesus, if we did not at once see and think about God also …. This cannot be said of any
other creature.”366 Moreover, Barth is convinced of Christ’s status as true humanity
because of His identification with true divinity. While this notion seems to separate
Christ from humanity as a whole, it is a separation of degree as opposed to genre.
Second, true humanity is distinguished from all of creation by the fact that there
exists a unique relationship between God and true humanity, a relationship wherein God
works in and through this human. Barth articulates that “He wills and works in man, in
this man for each and every man. He is the Saviour of men, their eternal and almighty,
their unique and totally Saviour.”367 In the relationship that exists between God and the
human, true humanity is not simply a state of being, but an action. The action is an act of
both salvation and revelation. Thus, the relationship between God and true humanity is
not solely for the benefit of the individual, but also for the benefit of all human beings. In
this relationship God’s history of deliverance is enacted and becomes knowable
throughout humanity.
Third, God’s willing and working in and through Christ for the salvation of
humanity does not cause a loss of God’s divine freedom. It is this act of divine freedom
as well as divine love that marks Jesus Christ as the true human. True humanity is seen as
the place where divine freedom and love dwell in creation. It is these free, loving, actions
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366
367

Barth, CD III/2, 68.
Barth, CD III/2, 68-69.

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of God that establish the story of history among humanity. As a result, history is a story
that “must be understood a priori, indisputably and axiomatically, as a divine human
history.”368 By consequence, true humanity must be understood first in light of this
history of God’s work before there is any attempt to understand a description or
investigation of humanity. True humanity is first and foremost a reality that is
conditioned by its relationship with God and the work that God accomplishes in and
through it.
Fourth, Jesus Christ existed in and with creation while existing in the lordship of
God. He is God among humanity as humanity. He was born a man, but born of God. As
such, Barth affirms that “He is the Son of God, it is only as such that He is real man.”369
True humanity cannot exist apart from being the Child of God. Humanity, apart from this
nature, fails to be truly human. It is into this divine reality that humanity is posited,
contained, and included; yet within it humanity truly thrives.370
Fifth, Jesus Christ is the dawning of the kingdom of God, the means and subject of
divine deliverance for all humanity. Such a reality exists because “no distinction can be
made between what this creature is and what it does, between what God does through this
creature and what He does in it. For this creature is the Word of God.”371 Though God
uses one man to help each and every human, this does not mean that He merely uses this
one man in order to reach a particular end. The means and the ends of God’s work in
Jesus of Nazareth is a divine reality, imparted by God Himself.

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368

Barth, CD III/2, 69.
Barth, CD III/2, 69.
370
Barth, CD III/2, 69.
371
Barth, CD III/2, 69.
369

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Sixth, Jesus Christ exists for God. “That it is for God means that it is for the divine
deliverance and therefore for God’s own glory, for the freedom of God and therefore for
the love of God.”372 True humanity is not a reality that exists for itself or its own
glorification, but simply for the work and glory of God. Simply put, “Man is the being
which is for God.”373 The truly human life is based on the privilege of reciprocity with
God. As such, this reciprocity with God is the essence of true humanity. Furthermore, this
reciprocity gives humanity meaning. Humanity is not just cut adrift or left to vain
pursuits, but human purpose is found in the presence and revelation of God. Because of
this relationship “the basis of human life is identical with its telos. Deriving from God,
man is in God, and therefore for God.”374 True human life does not face any teleological
suspension but a fulfillment of telos in the continuation of life in the presence of God.
It may seem that these six Christological foundations of humanity, along with
Barth’s entire description of Jesus as man for God, is too Christological in the sense that
it speaks only of the one man Jesus Christ and thus fails to be an anthropological
possibility. However, Barth is clear that “we cannot speak appropriately about man
generally and as such until we learn that the essence of man as seen in Jesus is to be for
God.” Therefore, one must understand how Christ exists as the human before a true
understanding of humanity can be perceived. Barth understands the essence of Jesus
Christ as being for God. In this the essence of true humanity is revealed in Christ’s
person and work.

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372

Barth, CD III/2, 70.
Barth, CD III/2, 70.
374
Barth, CD III/2, 71.
373

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The Phenomena of the Human
After Barth examines the existence of the one human within the cosmos, he
prepares to examine humanity generally in light of this Christological principle. Barth
sees Jesus as the foundation for the nature of humanity. It is in this section that Barth
discusses humanity as perceived outside of the Word of God and revelation, that which
can be discerned regarding humanity outside of the one person Jesus Christ. The very
concept of such an anthropology outside of the one person Jesus Christ initially may
seem antithetical to Barth’s demand that humanity only exist in relation to Christ, as Emil
Brunner suggested.375 However, it is important to note that while Barth is discussing the
phenomena of humanity generally, this phenomenological description occurs under the
illumination of the man Jesus. Barth thus outlines the “minimal requirements which we
must always bear in mind in face of conceptions of man’s nature derived from other
sources.”376 In this it is not that Barth places other sources of anthropological knowledge
alongside of his Christological one, but that other sources of anthropological knowledge
are possible because of this one Christological source.
Barth is clear that because of His two natures, Jesus Christ cannot serve as more
than a foundation for anthropological description. Even though Barth describes Jesus’
humanity as “a creature of God,”377 ultimately Jesus cannot be equated with humanity
generally, for “Anthropology cannot be Christology, nor Christology anthropology.”378
While in Christ humanity sees a perfected humanity, this humanity is vastly different than
its own humanity. Barth explains, “We remember that between the man Jesus and
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375

Brunner, “The New Barth,” 124.
Barth, CD III/2, 74.
377
Barth, CD III/2, 55.
378
Barth, CD III/2, 71.
376

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ourselves as men there stands not only the mystery of our sin, but primarily and
decisively the mystery of His identification with God.”379 This difference continues to
reveal the existence of the realdialektik between God and humanity within Barth’s
thought. Its existence shows the error in Emil Brunner’s comment that “Barth himself
will surely not contest the fact that what stands in this sixth volume is in contradiction to
much that was said in earlier volumes.”380 Respecting the unique personhood of Jesus
Christ, Barth understands that within Christ’s person and work there is a significant gap
between this One human and humanity generally. To flatten Christ’s unique features, so
as to reflect the whole of humanity broadly, would do violence to humanity generally (by
attempting to elevate humanity above its reality) and also to the Christological
description of Christ (by denying His unique personal status as the God-man).
Barth recognizes the gap that exists between the reality of humanity and the truly
human and the subsequent impossibility of a direct knowledge of the nature of humanity
generally from that of the human Jesus. However, there is still a connection between
Christ and humanity generally, so as to make possible general knowledge of Himself to
humanity. Explaining this further, Barth writes, “It might well be possible to know
indirectly who and what we are from the fact that we live in the same world and have the
same humanity as this man, so that we are contrasted as men with this very different
man.”381 It is because humans share a common experience of human life that they exist in
the same world as Christ, despite political, social and technological changes.
While Barth does not question the irremovable difference between the human Jesus
and humanity generally, he does look to the relationship between God and humanity
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379

Barth, CD III/2, 71.
Brunner, “The New Barth,” 124.
381
Barth, CD III/2, 72.
380

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generally for defining true humanity as it is for the human Jesus Christ. Barth admits that
anthropological knowledge cannot be a direct result of Christological knowledge, yet he
sees Christology as the necessary basis for humanity’s nature as the creation of a God
who creates.
The indirect nature of anthropology raises the issue as to why knowledge of
humanity must exist in such a complex manner. After all, could not theology look to
other forms of human knowledge that seem more direct such as methods based on the
autonomous self-reflection of humanity? Barth willingly admits that these forms of
anthropological understanding hold some significance for “in their limits they may well
be accurate and important.”382 Sociology, psychology, biology, existential philosophy,
naturalism, and evolutionary science all describe humanity in its uniqueness, based on the
unique methodological features of its field of study. These descriptions can be helpful,
useful and accurate, but they cannot fully describe humanity. These various descriptions
of humanity are “all bracketed, and no decisive enlightenment about man is to be
expected from within these brackets, but only from a source outside. This source is
God.”383 True humanity cannot be understood apart from God. True humanity is created
humanity as it was intended. To remove the Creator from the definition of humanity
means to remove the foundation of what humanity is. Barth suggests that “If we think of
man in isolation from and independence of God, we are no longer thinking about real
man.”384 For him humanity exists because of God and only in relationship with God.
Outside of this relationship humanity ceases to be human. The significance of this

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382

Barth, CD III/2, 122.
Barth, CD III/2, 122.
384
Barth, CD III/2, 123.
383

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relationship means that it “is not peripheral but central, not incidental but essential to that
which makes him a real man, himself.”385
According to Barth, humanity must be understood in the context of its relationship
with God, which is indirectly displayed through Jesus. One cannot “consider man as a
self-enclosed reality, or as having a purely general relation ad extra, to part of the whole
of the cosmos distinct from God. We must understand him as open and related to God
Himself.”386 Therefore, any attempt to describe humanity as a self-enclosed reality or a
reality distinct from God is bound to err (as seen in apologetics, evolutionary science,387
classical thought, natural sciences,388 ethics,389 existential philosophy,390 and theological
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385

Barth, CD III/2, 123.
Barth, CD III/2, 72.
387
Barth perceives that the apologetics of modern theology, since the time of Schleiermacher, had adopted
evolutionary concepts to define humanity. This resulted from the focus upon humanity in place of God,
allowing for the easy adopting of Kant’s dissolution of the classical proofs of God’s existence and the
subsequent idea of the special position of humanity in the universe offered by modern science. Barth, CD
III/2, 79-80. Modern theology and its apologetics came to adopt what Barth refers to as the “Darwinian
dogma” and with evolutionary science, and perhaps even more than evolutionary science, understood
humanity as set in its environment. Barth, CD III/2, 90. Barth willingly admits that “no one can doubt that
if man is to know himself he must see himself as set in his environment, and therefore primarily, for good
or ill, with his animal environment.” Barth, CD III/2, 87. However, this evolutionary understanding of
anthropology cannot be the sum of an anthropological understanding. After all, “it is clearly advisable not
to remain in this position or to try to see man merely against this background. Otherwise he will not be
viewed as a whole. Otherwise we shall not even see correctly what bind him to his environment.” Barth,
CD III/2, 87. Evolutionary understandings of humanity that pay particularly attention to humanity’s
environment are no doubt helpful in understanding humanity. But, as Barth states, “If man does not know
himself already, long before his attention is directed to these phenomena, he will be blind even though he
sees. In face and in spite of these phenomena he will always look on the wrong side. He will always think
with the animal and the rest of creation generally.” Barth, CD III/2, 90.
388
Classical thought defines humanity naturalistically as an animal endowed with reason. In this
framework, which is predominantly adopted by natural science, humanity is understood as an animal with a
particular feature that distinguishes it from the other animals. This concept of humanity “tries to answer the
question whether and to what extent man is more than an animal in contradistinction to other animals.”
Barth, CD III/2, 90. Barth remains open to starting an understanding of humanity with its physical nature as
a mammal, particularly in relationship to a scientific discussion to humanity. However, classical
descriptions of humanity cannot be allowed to canonize this definition of humanity as the first truth about
humanity. Human nature cannot be grounded upon a general animal nature in that it ignores the true
primarily human reality, which is humanity’s relation with God. Barth, CD III/2, 90-91. While humanity
may be seen in a connexion with the cosmos and the processes of it, humanity can never be understood as
derived from it. Barth, CD III/2, 93.
389
Barth notes that while some may see the move from naturalistic descriptions of humanity to ethical
descriptions, such as the eighteenth century German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fitche, such descriptions
cannot be that of true humanity. To think that ethical humanity is true humanity is self-deception. Human
386

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naturalism).391 Furthering his argument, Barth notes that “if we start with a universal
obtained by treating man’s relation to God as one specific feature with others and
therefore as a cura posterior [later concern], not to be included in the definition, we shall
merely be pointed to the void and never to the face of real man.”392
In order to know and understand humanity, one’s thinking must be grounded in
God. While anthropology is not directly Christology, Barth sees no other grounding for
anthropology than in Christ. Barth finds his concept of humanity
… on a very definite ground, that of the view of the man Jesus which is normative
for Christian theology, we have postulated that real man must in any event be a
being which as such belongs to God, to which God turns as Saviour, the
determinations of which God’s glory, which exists under the lordship of God and is
set in the service of God.393

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beings deceive “ourselves if when we see his shadows we think that we see the man himself. Indeed, when
we see his shadows, his ethical singularity, we have not even seen the symptoms of his true self.” Barth,
CD III/2, 96. This is because even within the ethical framework, while “we have verified the ethical
characteristics of man, we still do not have an unambiguous index of real man. For it is not the shadow
which distinguishes real man from the man who has perverted his true nature.” Barth, CD III/2, 96.
390
Barth takes on the issue of existentialist philosophy through the writing of Karl Jaspers. Based on
Jasper’s own definition of existentialist philosophy, it seems to be significantly related to the Christian, or a
theological understanding of humanity. Karl Jasper’s doctrine of frontier situations “especially seems to
approximate at any rate to a genuinely Christian understanding and estimation of man, as, for example in
Luther’s account of the relations between election, vocation, and temptation.” Barth, CD III/2, 113. Barth
admits that “Looking back from real man, we may even claim that it is the most genuine symptom of the
human.” Barth, CD III/2, 113. However, this is only a possibility in retrospect. As a result “we cannot say
more of the anthropology of this philosophy than that it has seen a phenomenon of the human. We cannot
say that it has shown us real man.” Barth, CD III/2, 113.
391
Theological naturalism is a term that may be used to describe, among others, the theology of sixteenthcentury Reformed theologian Amandus Polanus. Polanus conceived of humanity defined by an existence in
an organic body, with a living and sentient soul, and capable of independent movement. As Barth states,
“by adopting this definition he formally encouraged the idea that his theological interpretation [of
humanity] could be regarded as an appendix and even ignored.” Barth, CD III/2, 77. Barth points out that
that if one states with the “idea of man as an animal endowed with reason, we are not led by any necessary
inference to God, and therefore not to man as a being essentially related to God.” Barth, CD III/2, 77. In
order to be a proper understanding of true humanity, Barth perceives that humanity’s relationship with God
must be foundational. “If the interpretation is to be valid, the definition must include the truth that man’s
relationship to God is an essential part of his being ... Real man, whether animal or rational, exists in a
definite history grounded in God’s attitude to him. What he is apart from this history is not real man at all,
but a phantom.” Barth, CD III/2, 77.
392
Barth, CD III/2, 77.
393
Barth, CD III/2, 121.

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It must be noted that individual humans do not cease to exist outside of this
Christological grounding, but that they cease to exist as true humanity. Such sinful
humanity exists in isolation, from fellow humanity, themselves, and most importantly
God. This expression of humanity, or inhumanity, is an expression of humanity that
phenomenologically continues to exist as human; their physical life continues, at times
seemingly unaffected, yet is ceases to exist noetically and ontologically as truly human,
autonomous from the command of God and the Christ’s revelation of true humanity.394
Such a human experience fails to understand the proper measure and reality of human life
and opens the individual up to inhuman acts; acts which mar the relationship between the
individual and God, their fellow man, and the self. This human existence is existence in
the dark, as it is unable to attain the concept of true humanity.395 Looking back to an early
description of his CD, Barth points to the disciples, particularly Peter, to show how easily
one can transition from an individual of faith to one of faithlessness, from true humanity,
living in light of divine command, to autonomous humanity, living out fleshly
intentions.396 This inhuman expression rejects the freedom that Christ has provided
humanity to exist with God, and instead chooses idolatry and subjects itself to works of
righteousness.397 Humanity can exist in opposition to God, but it ceases to be humanity as
it was created to be. Humanity in opposition to God is inhuman, an experience of
humanity that is full of malice and brutality.398 Sinful humanity is autocratic humanity in
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394

It is exactly this form of inhuman existence that Barth pronounced such a vehement “No” against in his
early writings, particularly in Romans, in that this inhuman reality stands under the judgement and
condemnation of God.
395
Barth, CD III/2, 125.
396
Barth, On Religion, 89-90.
397
Barth, On Religion, 119.
398
This description of the inhumanity of the autonomous human was on full display for Barth as he bore
first hand witness to the depravity of “civilized Christian” nations attempting to destroy each other in the
two world wars that surrounded Barth for so much of his writing Career.

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that sinful humanity seeks exclusive self rule, leaving no place for God-given
authority.399
Consequential of Barth’s Christologically oriented anthropology, he names six
implications of his thinking thus far, which are directly connected to his six-fold
Christological description of the man Jesus. The six implications provide the guidelines
for Barth’s later exposition of true humanity beginning in §44.3 and continuing through
Barth’s “Doctrine of Reconciliation,” contained in volume IV of his Church Dogmatics.
First, humanity is able to perceive a similarity between Christ and itself “in spite of
all dissimilarity, every man is to be understood, at least mediately and indirectly, to the
extent that he is conditioned by the priority of this man, in his relationship with God.”400
This means that humanity generally shares a similarity with Christ in that both share a
relationship with the God. The dynamics of this relationship results in God using the
individual. It is this result of being made useful by God, as with the slave Onesimus, that
creates a common reality amongst all humanity.
Second, God establishes human history within His relationship with the man Jesus
based on an assumed similarity between Jesus and humanity generally. Every human
must exist and have their “being in a history which stands in a clear and recognizable
relationship to the divine deliverance enacted in the man Jesus.”401 This Christological
concept of history means that true history is not a scientific study of human phenomena
(historie), but the narrative of God’s salvific work amongst his people (Geschichte).
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399

This autonomous humanity may best be seen in the pages of Judges. In the times of the Judges, as with
autonomous humanity generally, “all people did what was right in their own eyes.” Judges 17:6 (NRSV).
particularly the despicable acts of the Ephraimite Micah of Judges 17. While this idea of autonomy appears
to many in contemporary society to be perfectly acceptable, even desirable as a libertarian paradise, such
autonomy is in direct violation of God’s command in Deuteronomy 12:8-12, which demands theologically
centred, not anthropocentric religion, as pleasing to God.
400
Barth, CD III/2, 73.
401
Barth, CD III/2, 73.

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Third, as God is able to will and to work in and through Jesus in His divine
freedom, so it is for true humanity as they will and work in light of this divinely given
freedom. Based upon this similarity and dissimilarity between Jesus and humanity
generally, the being of every human “is not an end in itself, but has its true determination
in the glory of God.”402 Humanity thus finds its telos not in human aspirations but in the
glorification of God.
Fourth, because Jesus is Lord over all of humanity “there is similarity between Him
and us ... it must be said of every man that it is essential to him that as he exists God is
over him as he himself stands under the lordship of God the Lord.”403 Jesus’ lordship
directly defines humanity. Because humanity is defined through this lordship, human
freedom must also be understood in light of this lordship, as Barth states “whatever may
be the meaning of [human] freedom, it cannot consist in freedom to escape the lordship
of God.”404
Fifth, because the being of Jesus consists wholly in the history of God as
humanity’s Saviour “the being of every man must consist in this history. Not only his
actions but his being consists in his participation in what God does and means for
him.”405 True humanity can only exist as it corresponds to divine action in its favour.
Sixth, if Jesus is humanity for God and thus surpasses all other creatures in the fact
that He exists simply that the work of God may be done, because Christ has surpassed all
creation, no human can be understood apart from the man Jesus.406 The similarity that

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402

Barth, CD III/2, 74.
Barth, CD III/2, 74.
404
Barth, CD III/2, 74.
405
Barth, CD III/2, 74.
406
Barth, CD III/2, 74.
403

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exists between God and humanity — in Christ — cannot be understood outside of God’s
willful action to bind Himself to humanity.407
With these six implications, Barth provides the minimal requirements to keep in
mind as one thinks about humanity’s nature, that is derived from other sources. It is these
six realities that exist in the man Jesus and thus it allows Barth to peer beyond the
brackets of autonomous humanity and self-perception. One can pass beyond this human
self understanding into a genuinely different level of thought “only when we realize that
the conjunction ‘God and man’ or ‘God with man’ or ‘man with God’ means noetically
and ontologically that God acts towards man, and when we rigidly confine our view to
the history which takes place between God and man.”408 When humanity is understood
noetically and ontologically, on the basis of God’s acts for and towards humanity, an
understanding of “Real Man” becomes possible.
True Humanity
Moving forward, Barth turns to the constructive task of providing a positive
description of what it means to be true humanity within the created cosmos.409 His
description of true humanity, based upon the two previous sections, remains staunchly
Christological. After all, “the ontological determination of humanity is grounded in the

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407

Barth, CD III/2, 74.
Barth, CD III/2, 124.
409
At this point it is wise to consider the question posed by Cynthia Rigby: How is it that we are to
understand human particularities, other than those held by Jesus (such as women-hood)? Rigby, pondering
Barth’s conception, states that “we [as human generally], become more sentient of our particularities in
relation to those of Jesus Christ, more in turn with the reality that human beings ‘[do] not exist abstractly
but concretely .... In response to the ‘divine seeing and thinking and speaking’ in the revelation of Jesus
Christ, we respond not in a disembodied way.” Rigby, “The Real Word”, 218-219. In this Rigby points out
that in the embodiment of Jesus the whole of humanity, in their unique embodied experience shares a
commonality with the embodied God-man.
408

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fact that one man among all others is the man Jesus.”410 Therefore, Jesus is not an
addendum to humanity generally, but rather defines the essence of humanity. In
consequence, “The more we concentrate upon Him the better will be our knowledge of
ourselves.”411 Barth continually presses for any truly theological description of humanity
to be Christological if it hopes to transcend mere human phenomena. He writes, “We are
condemned to abstractions so long as our attention is riveted as it were on other men, or
rather on man in general, as if we could learn about real man from a study of man in
general, and in abstraction from the fact that one man among all others is the man
Jesus.”412 Because humanity is “englobed” by Christ,413 Jesus is the baseline as well as
the telos of humanity; human understanding must find its essence in Christ.414 It is for
this reason that Spencer observes that the tendency of modern theology to construct its
anthropology on another ground other than Christ “is tantamount to reading a clock
backwards.”415 This ability to draw knowledge of humanity generally for Christ
specifically is because “He is the creaturely being who as such not only exists from God
and in God but absolutely for God instead of himself.”416
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410

Barth, CD III/2, 132. It is here that Barth’s anthropology learns from and conflicts with Friedrich
Schleiermacher concept of humanity. Schleiermacher conceives of the human person as Christo-morphic,
wherein the person is subjectively formed in the experience of a relationship with Christ and the
community that He established. Jacqueline Marina, “Christology and Anthropology”, 151. By contrast,
Barth conceives of the human as objectively established in the human person of Jesus Christ.
411
Colwell, Actuality and Provisionality, 248.
412
Barth, CD III/2, 132. In this, Barth stands in the shadow of Calvin, who conceives of true knowledge of
humanity as solely “grounded upon downward motion of grace.” Torrance, Calvin’s Doctrine, 14.
413
Fletcher, “Co-humanity,” 43.
414
In this understanding of humanity, one that fundamentally defines humanity by something other than
interiority, Barth, like Martin Heidegger and Ludwig Wittgenstein, is radically anti-modern. Webster,
Moral Theology, 42.
415
Spencer, Clearing a Space, 179.
416
Barth, CD III/2, 133. Here Barth’s view builds on the view of Friedrich Schleiermacher in that humanity
only achieves its perfection in Jesus Christ. However, Barth strongly opposes Schleiermacher’s collapsing
of the Divine into the truly human, while Schleiermacher conceives of the essential character of perfected
humanity as an expression of the Divine. Marina, “Christology and Anthropology,” 156. Barth on the other
hand understands that while Christ exists as fully God and fully man, there remains an infinite qualitative
difference between humanity and God.

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Barth begins his discussion of the reality of true humanity with the message of the
Bible, because it establishes that this one man Jesus has ontological significance for all of
humanity. Barth continues, “speaking of this one man it says of all other men – those who
were before Him and those who were after Him ... at least that they were and are
creaturely beings whom this man is like for all His unlikeness, and in whose sphere and
fellowship and history this one man also existed in likeness with them.”417 Human
creature-hood is based upon and linked to the person who confronts humanity in the
pages of the Gospels.418 Humanity cannot separate itself from this reality. Because Jesus
stands as human, it belongs to human essence generally that Jesus too is human. In Him
human beings have a “human neighbour, companion and brother… [and] we cannot
break free from this neighbour.”419 This neighbour stands as the other who is like us and
in relationship with us. Just as every other human exists as a fellow human, Jesus too
exists in this common human fellowship.420
Such fellowship with Jesus means that to be human “is to be with this
correspondence, reflection and representation of the uniqueness and transcendence of
God, to be with the One who is unlike us.”421 True humanity, real man, exists as one who
is in relationship with God. True humanity exists only when it receives from God and
thus responds. True humanity is a reality of relationship.422 Therefore, while humanity

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417

Barth, CD III/2, 133.
It is at this point that Barth chastens theological anthropology to boldly stand in light of the truth of the
Gospel descriptions of humanity. “Theological anthropology must not be so timid that it does not firmly
insist on this simplest factor in the setting .... It reckons only with a creatureliness of man constituted by the
fact that one man among all others is this man.” Barth, CD III/2, 134.
419
Barth, CD III/2, 133.
420
Barth, CD III/2, 134.
421
Barth, CD III/2, 135.
422
In this Barth stands in the shadow of Calvin who understands that humanity was created and can only
truly exist when humanity exists “in complete dependence on God.” Torrance, Calvin’s Doctrine, 14. As
418

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exists in the shadow of another, a wholly other, this other is not unknown or one who
stands against humanity, but rather one who confronts humanity “as a true and absolute
Counterpart, because He, this individual, is unique in relation to all creatures.”423 While it
is true that Jesus exists as the real man, as true humanity, true humanity not only
describes Christ, “but it is also a description of the reconciled human being.”424
Christological Humanity and the Ontological Impossibility of Sin
Because Barth conceives of humanity as ontologically based in its relationship with
God in Christ, he conceives of sin as an impossibility. True humanity is founded on
unification with Christ; thus, it is impossible for sin to be definitive of human beings.425
The ontological grounding of humankind on the humanity of Jesus means that true
humanity cannot be without God. “Man is not without, but with God.”426 True Humanity
exists solely in relationship with the man Jesus and God, because of this “we are actually
with Jesus, i.e., with God.”427 This Christological reality means that “sin itself is not a
possibility but an ontological impossibility for man.”428 This reality is an impossibility
because sin contradicts true humanity. “By aspiring either the autarkic or the autonomous
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Torrance notes, true human life for Calvin “consists in the light of his understanding in so far as that is
reflexive of the glory of God revealed through His Word.” Torrance, Calvin’s Doctrine, 31.
423
Barth, CD III/2, 135.
424
Mikkelsen, Reconciled Humanity, 122.
425
Webster, “Creation and Humanity,” 102. In this Barth stands as a descendant of Calvin. Calvin is clear
that sin and depravity “do not spring from nature, but rather from the corruption of nature.” Calvin,
Institutes, I.XIV.3, 163.
426
Barth, CD III/2, 136. In this Barth follows Anthanasius who states that “The presence and love of the
Word had called [humanity] into being; inevitably, therefore when they lost the knowledge of God, they
lost existence with it; for it is God alone Who exists, evil is non-being, the negative and antithesis of good.”
Athanasius, Incarnation, 30; emphasis added.
427
Barth, CD III/2, 136. In this understanding, Barth’s concept of real man is not dissimilar to Augustine’s
conception of ideal humanity. For Augustine, the human person is “not merely a person that does not intend
to do wrong, does not plan to do wrong, does not determine to do wrong, but that he cannot want to do
wrong, since he cannot love to do wrong – indeed cannot love to do wrong.” John Rist “Faith and Reason,”
in The Cambridge Companion to Augustine, eds. Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzman (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2001), 26.
428
Barth, CD III/2, 136.

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forms of moral mastery, they defy their creatureliness.”429 When humanity acts
autonomously of God in sin, it rejects the being it was created to be and becomes untethered from its true self and experiences cognitive, ontological, and noetic dissonance.
This is not to deny the reality of sin in the experience of the individual. Sin exists
within human phenomena, in fact the world groans under the weight of sin. While
godlessness is not a possibility for true humanity – because humanity stands with God
and thus “sin is absurd”430 – “this is not to say, of course, that godless men do not
biologically exist. Sin is undoubtedly committed and exists. Yet sin itself is not a
possibility but an ontological impossibility for man.”431 Sin exists, but it is counter to true
humanity. Sin is a denial of God and thus it is a denial of humanity. Should the human
choose sin, “He chooses his own impossibility.”432 It is this conclusion that allows Barth
to say,
Every offence in which godlessness can express itself, e.g.
unbelief and idolatry, doubt and indifference to God, is as
such, both in its theoretical and practical forms, an offence
with which man burdens, obscures and corrupts himself. It is
an attack on the continuance of his own creatureliness: not a
superficial, temporary or endurable attack, but a radical,
central fatal attack on its very foundation and therefore its
continuance.433
Human sin does irreparable damage to the proper relationship with the Creator and it
means that “[our] very being as man is endangered by every surrender to sin.”434 The
human act of sin brings our being into danger, in death, physically and spiritually. Human
sin is at the same time an act of estrangement from one’s true object of worship and the
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429

Biggar, Hastening, 10.
Mangina, Christian, 91.
431
Barth, CD III/2, 136.
432
Barth, CD III/2, 136.
433
Barth, CD III/2, 136.
434
Barth, CD III/2, 136, emphasis mine.
430

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ontological foundation of humanity, in that these two are one in the same, the one true
God. The existence of the human in sin “does not mean the destruction of their
‘humanness’ but rather its contradiction.”435 Unbelief is not simply a passive action but
an active decision against Christ and the true self. Or as G. C. Berkouwer suggests,
“Unbelief is a denial of the election in Christ, it is a denial of the definitive ‘God-for-us’
and of the fact that God has taken our rejection upon Himself and borne it away.”436
However, this fissure does not remain irreparable. Christ’s work of restoration includes
the restoration of humanity to its true ontological basis.437 The work of Christ, in faith, is
able to overcome the significant self-harm that sin inflicts, bringing justification and
reward in place of the retribution that is due to humanity.438
In this understanding of sinful humanity as an ontological impossibility, Barth
borrows particular concepts of existentialist philosophy. For Barth — like existentialism
— “to exist is to be human.”439 Sinfulness is to make one other than human — to cease to
exist. This concept of existence means that humanity is not measured by biological
realities, whether an individual contains the scientific “stuff” of humanity — human
DNA, cognitive ability, social reality, etc. — instead, existence is seen as a life lived
following the image of humanity. As Carl Michalson states “To exist is to value personal
authenticity more highly than scientific exactitude.”440
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435

Fletcher, “Co-humanity,” 42.
Berkouwer, Grace, 113.
437
Barth, CD III/2, 136.
438
It is for this reason that Barth writes, “The biblical message necessarily includes the thought of
retribution and reward because the necessity of justification of retribution and reward are deeply rooted in
this primary ontological basis of man – that he is with God.” Barth, CD III/2, 136.
439
Michaelson, Existentialism, 15.
440
Michaelson, Existentialism, 17. The influence of Kierkegaard’s existentialism is apparent here in that,
for Barth, true humanity was not a question of scientific measurement but a question of authenticity.
However, this should not be mistaken for the humanism of Sarte or the personalism of Mounier or
Bergyaev.
436

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Barth’s understanding of sin follows his Christological definition of humanity as
true humanity in relation to God, but also allows him to distance himself from standard
modern conceptions of sin. Such a perception characterizes sin as the human condition,
wherein humanity learns of its need for God. This tends to screen out many of the very
sins that the gospel should illuminate.441
True Humanity in Creation
Theological descriptions of humanity have often struggled to describe humanity’s
relationship to the rest of creation. Anthropological descriptions err in one of two ways.
First by elevating humanity above creation wherein a separation between creation and
created humanity is introduced, which leads to domination and exploitation on the part of
humanity. Humanity, because of its status as unique within the whole of creation, does
not perceive a need to care for creation and steward the world around them. Conversely,
anthropological descriptions of humanity can flatten the realities of creation, leaving
humanity in need of securing its unique position among creation through science.
Descriptions of humanity in relation to the rest of creation have a tendency to either
elevate humanity above creation or to reduce the significance of humanity before God. A
third position must also be mentioned, that of a middle ground between these two
tendencies, yet a middle ground that takes the worst of both the denigration of creation
and the elevation of humanity, which is Gnosticism. While Gnosticism is often perceived
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441

As Joseph Mangina points out there are four significant and easily understood reasons why Barth would
desire to distance himself from the standard modern concept of sin. “First, if the quasi-foundational role it
assigns to ‘the’ human condition, a dubious notion in any case ... [secondly] from Barth’s perspective, the
‘God’ arrived at through analysis of the conscious of sin and guilt could never be the God of Jesus Christ
…[thirdly] that privileging a certain kind of existential analysis has the effect of conveniently screening out
the sin we are most reluctant to have exposed, e.g. economic and social sins.” Finally, “the Christological
consideration that is decisive…what finally defeats all ‘systematic’ attempts to master the concept of sin is
the fact that only Jesus Christ himself, present by his Spirit, is in a position to tell us the truth about
ourselves.” Mangina, Christian Life, 93-94.

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as a patristic problem, non-Christological anthropologies easily fall into this way of
thinking, wherein the created or fleshly aspects of humanity are denigrated and the
spiritual or rational aspects of the individual are elevated to a demigod status. It is this
third concept that tempts contemporary evangelical Christianity, when it denies the very
reality that Barth has been clear to point out, humanity exists as the creation of God.
Concepts of humanity that denigrate humanity’s embodiment emphasizing Scriptural
passages, particularly those in Paul that condemn humanity’s fleshly nature,442 as well as
theologians such as Calvin443 without considering both the traditional separation between
embodiment (#5µ2) and flesh (#607), nor the physical aspects of regeneration.444
True humanity is a creature with God. Similarly, the rest of creation is created to be
with God, yet humanity stands uniquely among creation.445 Such a unique position with
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442

Such as Galatians 5:17 and Philippians 3:1-3.
“The world menaces, the body weighs us down.” Calvin, Institutes, I, 3, XII, 757.
444
This view, which can be labelled as an axiological dualism, can be seen to develop in Berkhof, when he
states “The operations of the soul are connected with the body as its instrument in the present life; but from
the continued conscious existence and activity of the soul after death it appears that it can also work
without the body. J.P. Moreland and Scott Rae, Body and Soul: Human nature and the Crisis in Ethics
(Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2000), 22. Berkhof, Systematic, 196. This became every more strongly
constructed in anti-evolutionary and thus anti-materialsistic conceptions of humanity which overemphasised the division between soul and body in early Christian theology, while failing to fully admit to
the influence of Greek philosophy on this early theology. Such views of humanity are buoyed by the
suggestions of theologians such as Wolfhart Pannenberg who significantly plays down the importance of
the body in his description of the resurrection as a spiritual reality of the soul, in which the soul has served
as the living, humanizing aspect of the body that death sets free to live in a spiritual reality. Wolfhart
Pannenberg, Anthropology in Theological Perspective, trans. Matthew O’Connel (Philadelphia:
Westminster Press, 1985), 522-532. In adopting this anti-materialistic construction, it becomes possible to
view all physical reality as sinful, while conceiving true life and true humanity as a spiritual reality. Such
an anti-embodiment concept of humanity, following particular readings of Romans 7: and Galatians 5:17,
inevitably end up in a Gnostic-like dualism, which distorts Paul’s concern for actions of sinful humanity
lived out in the body and surrenders up the human body—and all of God’s created physical world—to be
cast aside, as simply the remains of “fallen creation.”
445
This unique status of humanity originates not in any act of humanity but fully in God’s choosing,
particularly His choosing of Christ. “Not every creature is with God as man is with God.” Barth, CD III/2,
137). Other creations, in their own way “are originally and decisively with Jesus, and in this way with God
their creator and thus participant in being.” Barth, CD III/2, 137. However Barth notes that “in the other
spheres of creation we see no comparable Representative and Revealer of the majestic transience of God,
no creature to reflect and represent the uniqueness and transcendence of God as distance from other
creatures.” Barth, CD III/2, 137. Because of this “He was not made an animal, a plant, a stone, a star or an
element of the invisible heavenly world. But He did become man. It was in this way that in His
443

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God exists because God became man and stood as Man before God and God before man.
For Barth, humanity’s Christological relationship to God results in humanity standing
uniquely and in particularity among creation. Barth’s understanding of both creation and
humanity existing with God, in their unique manner, serves to maintain the bonds that
exist between humanity and creation while also highlighting the unique status of
humanity in creation, which for Barth, is grounded on and emanates from Christ who
encompasses humanity.
Content of Barth’s Christological Definition of Humanity
Because humanity is Christologically understood as “a being with God,”446
humanity’s being is derived from God. Such a notion leads Barth to two material and
primary statements that create the possibility of this reality and the correlation of
humanity’s understanding of it. He writes, “the being of man as a being with Jesus rests
upon the election of God; and that it consists in the hearing of the Word of God.”447 The
relationship that exists between God and man – that man is from, to, and with God –
stands as the formal dimension of true humanity, yet this formal dimension is ensconced
within the material dimension. The union between formal and material exist because
“both are made known to us in Jesus Christ, the God-man.”448
Because Barth bases the entirety of his understanding of humanity on the elected
Christ, Barth must begin describing true humanity in the election of Christ. Therefore, it
is only in the doctrine of election by God that the possibility of humanity finds an
ontological footing. This ground exists in the work and power of God. It is from this
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incomparable majesty He was made like the creature. It was in this man and not in any other creature that
He saw the meaning and motive of His whole creative work.” Barth, CD III/2, 137-138.
446
Barth, CD III/2, 140.
447
Barth, CD III/2, 143.
448
McLean, Humanity, 29.

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thinking that moves Barth to ask, “What power has creaturely being to prevent its own
dissolution accompanying and threatening it as the sum of its ontological
impossibility?”449 Human finitude and sin creates the subjectivity and impotence in
humanity that is apparent in Barth’s description of humanity, particularly in The Epistle
to the Romans. Yet, the movement toward non-being ceases by the work of the God who
stands outside of finitude and sin and can provide the solid grounding of true humanity.
As Barth states, “The Creator who gave it being can go further and give it a being secure
against non-being. And it is the will of God to do this. God created it with the aim of
being secure.”450 The man Jesus is the spearhead of the will of God in humanity, in that
He is the one man in whom God’s will has been fulfilled. Because God has chosen Christ
as the one who chooses God, humanity can enter into such a relationship because Christ
stands as the head of all humanity. “To be a man is to be with Jesus … to be with the One
who is the true and primary Elect of God.”451
The second point that creates the possibility of humanity existing as it does with
Jesus consists in their hearing and listening to the Word of God. “The being of man as
being with Jesus consists in listening to the Word of God. The man Jesus and again we
start with Him, is the sum of the divine address, the Word of God, to the created
cosmos.”452 Barth’s understanding of a humanity that is based upon the Word of God is
dependent upon his Logos Christology. “The man Jesus not only speaks but is Himself
the divine speech.”453 Christ is the Word of John 1:1. He speaks, acts, and exists as the
Word of God. “He is not merely the Bearer or Instrument of the divine address and
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449

Barth, CD III/2, 146.
Barth, CD III/2, 146.
451
Barth, CD III/2, 145.
452
Barth, CD III/2, 147.
453
Barth, CD III/2, 148.
450

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summons but is Himself the divine address and summons.”454 It is in Jesus that humanity
receives directly the revealed reality of God and the reality of true humanity. Jesus’
revelation of God’s Word in the simplest terms can then only be understood as Himself.
In His life, Jesus “speaks of the creaturely presence, actions and revelation of God
actualized in Himself; of the saving action of God, and therefore of His kingdom, of the
doing of His will, of His own creaturely being as wholly dedicated to this purpose, of
God’s lordship over Him.”455
It is here that Barth reaches a significant anthropological, as well as soteriological,
reality. Barth’s Christological foundation of humanity, as humanity addressed by God,
means that “Man is the being which is addressed in this way by God. He does not become
this being. He does not first have a kind of nature in which he is then addressed by God ...
He is from the very outset, as we may now say, ‘in the Word of God’.”456 Thus, following
Athanasius,457 the individual does not become human in any action, nor, contrary to many
popular Western soteriological constructs, the individual does not become a Christian or
become like Christ. To be a true human is to be a Christian; to be a true human is to be
like Christ.458 True human existence does not start with human action, or even human re-

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454

Barth, CD III/2, 148.
Barth, CD III/2, 148.
456
Barth, CD III/2, 150.
457
For Athanasius, as with Barth, God became human, but this does not mean that God changes in
becoming human. God ontologically becomes human in the incarnation and yet this does not concurrently
involve change. Weinandy, Athanasius, 85.
458
As seen in Louis Berkhof’s concepts of conversion and sanctification. Berkhof notes that conversion is a
human response “born of godly sorrow, and issues in a life of devotion to God.” Berkhof, Systematic, 483.
In this response the individual is regenerated and enters into a process of sanctification. This process
produces a new human “that must grow into full stature.” Berkhof, Systematic, 537. Also, J.I. Packer hints
to this concept of this continual evolution of the Christian when he states that “Christians become
increasingly Christ like as the moral profile of Jesus is progressively formed in them.” Packer, Concise
Theology, 170. This concept of becoming like Christ is seen in Wolfhart Pannenberg’s concept of “The
‘New Man’” in comparison to Barth’s Real man or true humanity. In this Pannenberg looks back to
Irenaeus who states that “we did not reach completion at first because, as finite beings, we were unable to
455

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action toward God, but rather in its foundation, in its creation by the Word of God.459
While individuals can exist outside of the Word of God, this experience is not the natural
reality of humanity, but rather the result of humanity’s decision to reject God. Ultimately,
it is an act against one’s own true nature.
This grounding of humanity in the address of the Word of God is radically counter
to the general anthropological concepts of popular Western Christendom.460 Christianity
is not a value added to human reality. In the same way, it is not an addition to the
individual, whereby humanity is augmented. Instead, it is core to the very essence of
humanity. Human nature is not something that exists and is at one point addressed by the
Word of God, but that from its very outset it exists in the Word of God. This human
existence is that of being addressed, called, and summoned by the Word of God. As a
result, Barth suggests that “perhaps the fundamental mistake in all erroneous thinking of
man about himself is that he tried to equate himself with God and therefore to proceed on
the assumption that he can regard himself as the presupposition of his own being.”461
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receive, or achieve by ourselves, perfect fellowship with God.” Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 2:298.
459
In his understanding of true humanity in relationship to God, Barth stands near Augustine who sees
Jesus also as the clearest example of true humanity because his humanity is pleasing to God. “It is pleasing,
claims Augustine, not because Jesus overcame the temptations of the flesh and thereby earned God’s favor,
but because at heart he was never other than the person God intended him to be.” James Wetzel,
“Predestination, Pelagianism, and Foreknowledge,” in The Cambridge Companion to Augustine, eds.
Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzman (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 50.
460
An example of this is seen in J.I. Packer’s statement that “in regeneration, God implants desires that
were not there before.” J.I. Packer, Concise Theology (Carol Stream: Tyndale House Publishing, 1993),
170. Similarly Millard Erickson states that regeneration “involves something new, a whole reversal of the
person’s natural tendencies. Millard Erickson, Introducing Christian Doctrine, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids:
Baker, 2001), 312. Further, Barth is clearly in conflict with the American Neo-Evangelical writer Wayne
Grudem who sees the act of conversion as a personally initiated response to Christ, whereby the individual
makes a “personal decision to turn from [sin]”, thus repenting turning to a life of faith. The human
generated nature of this conversion is apparent in the second person singular verbs Grudem uses
surrounding faith and repentance. For Grudem, faith and repentance, and thus becoming a Christian, is the
result of personal human action. It is in this that such Neo-evangelical concepts of conversion turn to a sort
of works righteousness whereby the individual is the actor who, in a way, procures their own salvation.
Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Inter-Varsity Pres, 1994), 713.
461
Barth, CD III/2, 151.

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Humanity is a reality, but a reality that exists on a basis outside of itself. Because real
humanity is the created being that is addressed, called, and summoned by the Word of
God. Barth’s first full description of humanity is as “summoned because chosen.”462 To
truly ask the question “Who am I?” – in light of the Word of God – the answer must be
“that I am summoned by the Word, and to that extent I am in this Word.”463
Humanity exists in a reality of truth and thus has a true understanding of itself.
Moreover, Barth explains that “[Humanity] exists in the fact that what he is told by God
is the truth. He exists in this truth and not apart from it.”464 Ontologically speaking,
humanity cannot exist in a lie or deception; true humanity only exists within the true
understanding provided in divine revelation. The existence of humanity within divine
truth means that such an understanding of humanity is based upon the acceptance of the
realdialektik that has existed within Barth’s theology since The Epistle to the Romans.
True humanity lives within the truth of God and thus the very real gap that exists between
God and humanity. God is God; humanity is not. Yet this truth also includes the
knowledge that God, in Christ, transcends this difference.
Christ and the Origin of Humanity
It is here, in Christ, where Barth wishes to anchor the origin of humanity. As Barth
has previously shown, he is not interested in the organic development of humanity,465 but
in the origin, the source of humanity. Barth is able to conceive of humanity grounded in
an invisible reality because all things that are seen have been created by the Word of God,
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462

Barth, CD III/2, 150.
Barth, CD III/2, 150. In this Barth follows the lead of Athanasius who understood humanity to be
created in the image of the Word, which is Christ. It is also in the Word that humanity stands as it was
created to be. Athanasius, Incarnation, 40-41.
464
Barth, CD III/2, 152.
465
For example, as it is seen in evolutionary science.
463

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the One who is unseen. In this “those things that are seen are not grounded in anything
perceptible but solely on the Word of God .... What men are as men, they are thought
God and not otherwise.”466 Barth suggests that there exists in Christ “a real pre-existence
of man as the one who is summoned by God” in Christ.467 Humanity’s origin is found in
Christ because “through Him all things were made.”468 Christ stands as the “first born
over all creation.”469 Moreover, Christ stands as the eternal, “uncreated prototype of the
humanity that is linked with God, man in his unity with God.”470
Christ stands as the pre-existence of humanity, not as a failed experiment or a
primordial man that humanity has fallen from, but as the image of which the very essence
of humanity was created. Humanity, individually and collectively, stands as truly human
only when it exists in light of the Christological knowledge and election of God. Barth’s
Christological concept of humanity means that human history is a reality, but only
because of the divine work of God in this man Jesus Christ. This history is made up of the
existence of this Man that reveals the Creator’s concern for creation. The Creator’s
concern, which culminates in Christ’s existence, Himself becoming a creature, this “is the
fullness and sum” of what is meant by the term “history.”471
The pre-existence of the human Christ, which is the proper basis for human history
according to Barth, means that humanity is properly defined by its relationship to God.
Humanity is “the being whose Kinsman, Neighbour, and Brother is the man Jesus and in
whose sphere therefore this history takes place. He is with God, confronted and prevented
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466

Barth, CD III/2, 156. In this Barth differs radically from Descartes, Kant, and the majority of modern
thinking that has sought to secure humanity upon a tangible reality, either internal or external, to humanity.
467
Barth, CD III/2, 155.
468
John 1:3, NIV.
469
Colossians 1:15, NIV.
470
Barth, CD III/2, 155.
471
Barth, CD III/2, 157.

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and elected and summoned by Him, in the fact that this history takes place in his own
sphere.”472 Humanity is marked by this remarkable factor because of God’s work. God
has worked to establish humanity in relation to Himself, transcending the chasm that
exists between God and man.
Christ’s Graceful Establishment of Humanity
This work of God is a work of grace. In this true humanity is a reality established in
the work of God’s grace. Grace is the act of establishing humanity in relationship to God
as well as the act of re-establishing humanity with God. “In the Word of grace God its
Creator comes to it, gives Himself to it and dwells within it. And in the Word of grace
which comes to it, it acquires its own being as man.”473
God’s Word of grace creates the opportunity for humanity to reply to God’s actions
in their action. This grateful action on the part of the human is to “recognize and honour
as a benefactor the one who has conferred this good.”474 Humanity is able to act in
gratitude as a result of God’s act towards humanity. These grateful actions are human
actions that stand as godly actions, because they are made possible in the relationship that
exists between God and true humanity and are thus good. Humanity is able to respond to
the “Yes” pronounced by God regarding it. However, these actions and the attitude
associated with them, cannot exhaustively express the reality that exists between God and
man.475
True Humanity as Grateful Humanity
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472

Barth, CD III/2, 160.
Barth, CD III/2, 164-165. It is important to note that grace and gratitude are terms used solely in
soteriological contexts in the New Testament, “but in the New Testament the existence of the man Jesus is
a soteriological, the soteriological reality.” Barth, CD III/2, 160.
474
Barth, CD III/2, 167.
475
Barth, CD III/2, 167.
473

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This reality of human gratitude prompts Barth to pose four significant propositions,
two directly concerning God and two directly concerning humanity. The first suggests
that “Only God deserved the thanks of man.”476 This is not to say that humanity cannot
express gratitude to aspects of creation, but that such gratitude – if it is to be true
gratitude – must be rooted in an understanding of God’s work on humanity’s behalf.
Barth explains, “Thanksgiving is wasted, indeed it rests on error and can only lead to
further error, if it is not directed to the one benefit of this one Benefactor, even in the
grateful acceptance of benefits from creaturely benefactors.”477 This gratitude of
humanity for God is unlike any other gratitude in depth and scope because of the radical
work of God.
Second, “God can only be thanked by man.”478 Gratitude is a reality that is essential
and only possible in the relationship between God and humanity. Ontologically speaking,
it is only humanity that can be grateful to God.479 Only God can receive true and utter
gratitude, and humanity is the only aspect of creation that can express such true and utter
gratitude.480
Third, Barth turns to highlight the first of two propositions that directly relate to
humanity, mirroring his first proposition. It is only as humanity lives in gratitude, only as
humanity thanks God, does humanity fulfill its true being. One’s “history and therefore
his true being has its origin in God with the fact that God tells him that He is gracious to

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476

Barth, CD III/2, 169.
Barth, CD III/2, 169.
478
Barth, CD III/2, 169.
479
Barth, CD III/2, 170.
480
It is here that Barth warns his readers in regards to idolatry. “A God who requires and accepts anything
else from man, any attitudes and actions otherwise conditions and grounded, would certainly not be God.”
Any “God” who requires more than gratitude from humanity is a god fashioned after human likeness.
Barth, CD III/2, 170.
477

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him.”481 For Barth, true human history is founded in God and is marked by human
gratitude; human history is the recounting of God’s works for humanity.
Here the ontological description of true humanity begins to take form. Barth states
that “by doing this and this alone does [the individual] distinguish himself as being from
non-being.”482 True humanity exists in a relationship of gratitude. Should an individual
choose to exist with any other attitude towards God, either individually or collectively,
this person(s) fails to stand as truly human. The ungrateful individual stands as an
ontological impossibility, as inhuman, in the eyes of God. It is only when humanity
stands as properly grateful to God, does it exist as it was created to. It is for this reason
that Barth is able to provide a paraphrase of his concept of being, through Shakespearian
language, “‘To be or not to be? That is the question,’ and it is decided by the way in
which we answer the question: To give thanks or not to give thanks? The real man is the
man who is thankful to God, and he alone.”483 This is not to suggest that Barth
understands true humanity as solely existing in gratitude, for “man can and does do many
things. But only in one way can he confirm the fact that he is man. He has only the one
great possibility of being man.”484 True humanity exercises itself in various human
activities, but these activities never mark the essence of the human nor do they stand as
the quality of humanity that is human gratitude.
Fourth, mirroring his second proposition is that “to thank God in this way is
incumbent on man alone.”485 This gratitude arises as a result of the human connection
with the divine Word of grace which God speaks to humanity. This human thankfulness
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481

Barth, CD III/2, 171.
Barth, CD III/2, 171.
483
Barth, CD III/2, 171.
484
Barth, CD III/2, 171.
485
Barth, CD III/2, 171.
482

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consists in the human “finding himself engaged and committed to the God who shows
him this benefit in His word.”486 In this true human identity is an identity marked by
gratitude, marked in a fashion that is unique to true humanity alone.
All created beings exist in the reality of God’s grace, as it is experienced in their
respective manner, and all created beings are called to live in thankfulness to God. This
compels humanity to understand itself not as separated from the rest of creation, but
“together with that of all other creatures as a creaturely being.”487 The life of true
humanity is marked by thankfulness, yet this life is marked by thankfulness “no less than
the sun and Jupiter, but also no more than the sparrow of the lane or indeed the humblest
Mayfly.”488 Because of the common reality of thankfulness of creation, humanity must
interact with the rest of creation in humility.
However, this thankfulness of creation differs from the thankfulness of true
humanity as a result of the establishment of the unique relationship between humanity
and God in the person of Jesus Christ. In this “the form in which thanks are demanded of
man is peculiar to man alone.”489 The unique reality of true human gratitude is rooted in
the fact that it has the character of being subjective and spontaneous. The Word of God
provides the ability for humanity to act in gratitude in the realm of their volition, creating
a uniquely human reality, which can be called responsibility. This responsibility is a
reciprocal relationship that exists between God and true humanity. After all, “God does
not merely make man responsible by His word,”490 as if to set humanity up for an
inevitable failure, but in His Word, God actively engages humanity. The Word of God
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
486

Barth, CD III/2, 172.
Barth, CD III/2, 172.
488
Barth, CD III/2, 172-173.
489
Barth, CD III/2, 173.
490
Barth, CD III/2, 174.
487

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provides humanity the means to exist, not simply in the particular potentiality of
gratitude, but spurs humanity into “an act and occurrence [of gratitude] and therefore
beings itself.”491
Barth’s understanding of gratitude continues to take on an ontological definition of
true humanity, made possible through God’s grace. Gratitude marks the being or essence
of true humanity and it is for this reason that he states, “Being, human thanksgiving, has
the character of responsibility.”492 The reality of gratitude is a continuation of his
anthropological concept stretching back to Romans. True gratitude is only possible when
the realdilectic is perceived, when humanity understands the “No” spoken against it by
God, as a result of sin, as well as the graceful “Yes” of God’s mercy. This dialectic is
revealed in Christ, in whom humanity has been elected to a relationship and freedom to
perceive and express this gratitude.
“Real Man,” True Humanity
One cannot read Barth’s concept of “Real Man” without continuing to be aware of
the gravity of the human situation as it stands outside of relationality with God. Neither
can the reader overlook the significance of the union of God and humanity, enacted by
God, in the God-man Jesus Christ.493 This union is possible for Barth because he shares

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
491

Barth, CD III/2, 174.
Barth, CD III/2, 174.
493
This existence of humanity stands in stark contrast to the conceptions of humanity of both Kant and
Hegel. Kant’s conception of “true” humanity is circumscribed by moral considerations. Price,
Anthropology, 60. By contrast, Barth’s true humanity is “not found where the categorical imperative
beckons. The ‘real man’ is found rather in the very specific person of Jesus Christ, who is fully human but
not merely human.” Price, Barth’s Anthropology, 123. While Barth’s concept of the truly divine Christ as
true humanity may seem strikingly Hegelian, it is the exact opposite of the anthropologically focused
philosopher. While Hegel’s system results in a deification of humanity, in that ultimately Hegel’s man is
Hegel’s God, Barth’s concept of true humanity exists only in light of the transcendent call of God, a God
who remains distinct from humanity. Price, Barth’s Anthropology, 60-123.
492

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in the historical doctrine “of the en- and anhypostatis of the human nature of Jesus Christ,
the view that this man only exists at all because God united himself with humanity.”494
Barth continues to expound his description of true humanity by discussing the
subjectivity and spontaneity that is developed as a result of the human being in
responsibility before God. True humanity exists in this reality as a result of God’s actions
towards humanity in Christ. True humanity, that is Christological humanity, exists in a
reality of truly human action, which Barth perceives as having four particular aspects.
The first being that “as human life is a being in responsibility before God, it has the
character of a knowledge of God.”495 This means that true humanity is defined by a
revealed knowledge of God. True humanity cannot exist in ignorance of the truth of God.
It is this act of knowing that the human defines itself as a subject. Humanity stands as a
subject of knowledge, solely because of God’s act of revelation, and is thus established in
knowledge of God as an object.496
Furthermore, true humanity attains a true self-knowledge in this knowledge of God,
made possible through divine revelation. Humanity outside of divine revelation is unable
to fulfil the Delphic maxim 8.59, #%2:$;..497 The problem of objective self-knowledge
is solved only in this relationship with God and opening themselves to God. Barth
reasons, “In this act he will find himself only as a relatively other.”498 Self-knowledge is
continually dependent upon humanity’s relation to God. “For this reason we cannot
ascribe to human self-knowledge the strict subject-object relationship which is
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
494

Krötke, “Anthropology”, 163.
Barth, CD III/2, 176.
496
Barth, CD III/2, 177. In this Barth establishes humanity in the very act that Kant defined as an
impossibility, objective knowledge of the Divine. The difference for Barth is that humanity is established in
this knowledge not because of any action of their own, but solely because of the graceful provision of
God’s revelation.
497
“Know thyself.”
498
Barth, CD III/2, 178.
495

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characteristic of the knowledge of God.”499 Even when humanity exists as true humanity,
as it was created to exist collectively and individually, at no point does it transcend the
dialectical difference that stands between God and humanity. At this point Barth is able to
affirm “the simple and pregnant statement: ‘I am,’ is now possible and necessary.”500
However, while the relationship with God, afforded to humanity by Christ, does not
simply establish this possibility, it continues to establish this relationship. Just because “I
am” is possible and necessary, “It is not absolutely true. We can dare to affirm it only to
the accompaniment and in consequence of the affirmation: ‘God is’.”501
The second aspect of true humanity is that “It has the character of obedience to
God.”502 This obedience is an act of responsibility before God. True humanity, as seen
above, is grounded in the hearing the Word of God. Thus responsibility is the
spontaneous and active form of hearing.”503 It is this act of hearing that stands as the
defining action of the knowing subject. True humanity is thus defined by its act of
hearing and obeying the Word of God.504
True humanity thus cannot exist outside of the reality of the Word of God. “The
omnipotent working Word of God does not permit the creature to remain self-contained
and apart, to be itself without positing itself. The being of man is as it is claimed and
engaged by this Word.”505 True humanity exists as it stands under the shadow the Word

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
499

Barth, CD III/2, 178.
Barth, CD III/2, 178.
501
Barth, CD III/2, 178.
502
Barth, CD III/2, 179.
503
Barth, CD III/2, 179.
504
Barth, CD III/2, 179.
505
Barth, CD III/2, 180.
500

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of God. That true humanity exists and therefore is obedient to God, means that the
statement “I am,’ must be interpreted by the further statement: ‘I will’.”506
True humanity is thus established in an action, true humanity exists not as a noun,
but as a verb; true humanity exists only as it acts in this shadow of knowledge. “‘I will’,
thus emphasizing the fact that the being and presence of man are not merely passive but
active. Man is, of course, purely receptive as regards the movement from God, but he is
also purely spontaneous in the movement of God.”507 However, this understanding also
means “I am” is equated with “I do.” The action “I do” means that humankind acts and
continues to act in response to God. Because man is both “I am” and “I will,” humanity is
not simply a passive object; it is not a chess piece manipulated by the chess master. Yet if
humanity does not obey, they act to surrender themselves to godlessness and inhumanity,
surrendering the God-given freedom for the tyranny of sin.508
Third, true humanity is marked by an invocation of God, which is the basis for
humanity’s responsibility before God.509 Because of the problem of creatureliness – the
supreme disparity between humanity and the divine – humanity can only be understood
as approaching God, as a result of God’s previous action of approaching humanity. “God
comes to man – this is the objective basis of man’s being. And man goes to God – this is
the subjective basis. But God is the Creator and man is His creature.”510 Such a reality
continues to mark humanity, even as it stands as renewed humanity. Because of this
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
506

Barth, CD III/2, 180.
Barth, CD III/2, 180.
508
Barth, CD III/2, 180-181. Here Barth draws heavily on the understanding of human knowledge as
human responsibility from Calvin’s Catechism in which Barth points out the primary aim of human life is
to know God. Taking up a theme of Augustine, Calvin points out hat humanity’s highest aspect is not to be
saved by God but to glorify God. “To honour God is to meet Him as He gives Himself to us, to be
responsible before Him as the One He truly is. But to invent a god according to our own fancy is the source
of all error and heathendom.” Barth, CD III/2, 183-184.
509
Barth, CD III/2, 186.
510
Barth, CD III/2, 187.
507

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Barth is quick to point out that “the subjective foundation of human being [human
knowledge] cannot be equal in dignity to the objective foundation [divine selfrevelation].”511 Humanity holds the ability to choose to respond to God, to offer itself to
God, to express thanks to God, thus humanity is responsible before God in making itself a
response to the Word of God and ultimately submitting to the judgment of God.
However, true humanity can be no less but also no more than a response to God.512
True humanity is secure when confronted by God in this understanding of humanity
as an invocation. True humanity cannot be confused with the real possibilities of hubris
or idolatry in that “The limits of the creature are guarded when we understand the being
of man as an invocation of God.”513 As a result, true humanity exists in a responding
towards God, but this cannot occur in actuality if it is not first based on God’s invocation
to humanity.
Fourth, humanity exists in freedom, “the freedom which God imparts to it.”514 This
freedom is not the individualistic freedom that is expressed in enlightenment concepts.
God and God alone bequeaths freedom to the human. It is because “in the first place God
alone is free. Then he alone wills and creates a free being as His creature. As man is this
being, he too is free.”515 However this freedom cannot exist without God or outside of
human dependence upon God. Human concepts of freedom would be “valueless if it
related to a freedom which man had gained for himself or had accepted form some other
source. He is only in so far as he is willed and created by God.”516 The individual thus
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
511

Barth, CD III/2, 187.
Barth, CD III/2, 189-191.
513
Barth, CD III/2, 191.
514
Barth, CD III/2, 192.
515
Barth, CD III/2, 194.
516
Barth, CD III/2, 194.
512

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gains true freedom to act through its unity with the freedom of God and ceases to be free
only when the individual asserts himself or herself outside of the realm of freedom that
God has established in relation to humanity.
True humanity exists in a freedom that is Christological in that it is a freedom
provided by God to humanity through Christ. Human freedom cannot exist without the
reality that Christ exists in the freedom of God, confronting humanity as Saviour and
Keeper, creating human responsibility and thus the freedom to live out this
responsibility.517 This freedom is “the freedom of a right choice.”518 Barth’s concept of
freedom of a right choice cannot be confused with liberty. Humanity is set free from sin,
from the inability to choose God and instead is provided the ability to choose true
existence with God. “In the free choice of man which is really made in exercise of the
freedom given by God, it is clear that only thanksgiving to the God of grace and the
acceptance of responsibility before Him can be chosen.”519 Despite human conceptions
otherwise true freedom is freedom to choose to live in the truth, truth that can only be
understood in the light of revelation of the Word of God.520
It is impossible to understand true humanity as anything other than free. True
humanity stands in a freedom that releases the individual from the fetters of sin. True
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
517

Barth, CD III/2, 194-195.
Barth, CD III/2, 197.
519
Barth, CD III/2, 197.
520
Barth, CD III/2, 197. While Barth’s concept of freedom can be seen in contrast to multiple philosophical
descriptions of freedom, the most significant comparison maybe with the founding concepts of the United
States of America, “The Land of Liberty.” Thomas Pane, among other founding Fathers, equated freedom
with liberty. Pane understood freedom something that indwells within the individual, something that is
anthropological based, and must be respected by the state and others in society. Thomas Pane, “Rights of
Man,” in Common Sense, Rights of Man and Other Essential Writings of Thomas Pane (New York: Signet
Classics, 2003), 250-253. Barth’s conception of freedom cannot be equated with liberty. However, while
Barth’s concept of freedom appears radically different than modern conceptions of freedom, as seen in
Pane, Barth’s Christological freedom does not suffer the limitations seen in anthropological concepts of
freedom. Barth’s concepts of freedom is able to transcend the individual, and does not bring one’s freedom
in conflict with another’s, as is often the case with liberty.
518

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humanity is kept from evil. True humanity is free in that it exists in a reality wherein the
individual is able not to see and not able to sin.521 This is because “evil has no place in
the creation of God or the creatureliness of man.”522
True Humanity in the Real World
Having established these four ontological aspects of true humanity (responsibility
to God, obedience to God, the invocation of God, and true freedom) Barth is able to
reconsider the phenomena of humanity. Having considered this reality of true humanity it
is not possible to know “the content of which they belong the reality of which they are
appearances.”523 As a result “we are now in a position to see them not merely as
phenomena but to estimate them as real indications of the human.”524 As a result of
having considered these Christological presuppositions that define true humanity – based
upon the divine “No” pronounced against sinful humanity as well as the divine “Yes” that
humanity encounters in Christ’s divine gracefulness – Barth is now able to “affirm that
all scientific knowledge of man is not objectively empty.”525 This scientific knowledge
must presuppose the theological definition of humanity, but it is able to arrive at a valid
anthropological knowledge. It is because of this that Barth is able to affirm the possibility
of the genuine discovery of true humanity, or at least aspects of true humanity in natural

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
521

Barth, CD III/2, 197.
Barth, CD III/2, 197.
523
Barth, CD III/2, 198.
524
Barth, CD III/2, 198-199.
525
Barth, CD III/2, 198-199. In this, Bruce McCormack’s assertion is seen correct that in Barth’s theology
“The divine NO in which opposition to human sinfulness is expressed is the servant of the divine Yes of
grace because human sinfulness is expressed is the servant of the divine Yes of grace because grace is the
beginning and the end of all the ways of God in which God has his being.” Bruce McCormack, “The Sum
of the Gospel: The Doctrine of Election in the Theologies of Alexander Schweizer and Karl Barth,” in
Towards the Future of Reformed Theology: Tasks, Topics, Traditions, eds. David Willis and Michael
Welker (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 489.
522

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science,526 idealistic ethics,527 existentialist philosophy,528 and theistic anthropology,529
the very fields that Barth had the most stringent criticism in the earlier discussion of
human phenomena.530
In this discussion, Barth has outlined the reality of true humanity in the cosmos.
This reality is a result of Barth’s understanding of Christ and the revelation of God in
Christ. In this Barth has described true humanity as “the creature of God.”531 However,
this simply provides the basis for human description that Barth will continue to develop
throughout the remainder of his Church Dogmatics.532

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
526

Barth notes that natural science can perceive an aspect of true humanity when it seeks to locate
humanity in the cosmos in humanity’s interconnection with other cosmic phenomena. Barth states that
natural science can be valid “if it realises that man cannot be its object except in his capacity to be cosmic
both in general and in particular, therefore to be the creature of God, and if it also realises that this involves
a presupposition which is not itself scientific in character, namely that of the real man who has this
capacity, then it is genuine science.” Barth, CD III/2, 200. In this Barth stands firmly in the tradition of
Calvin who perceives “secular writers” as admirable, when understood first in light of humanity’s fallen
nature and God’s good gifts “we shall neither reject the truth itself, nor despise it wherever it shall appear,
unless we wish to dishonour the Spirit of God.” Calvin, Institutes, I, 2,II, 273-274.
527
Barth describes idealistic ethics as attempting to understand and present humanity in the act of
differentiation within the cosmos. Such an understanding and presentation can represent an aspect or
symptom of true humanity. But for this to be a possibility, such ethics must realize that its object cannot be
more than a partial symptom of true humanity and can never describe the sum of true humanity. Barth, CD
III/2, 201.
528
Existentialist philosophy may describe a symptom of true humanity and go beyond natural science and
idealistic ethics in its description of true humanity because it understands humanity against the backdrop of
“the true transcendence which proclaims itself only in the fact of the limitation of human existence.” Barth,
CD III/2, 201. However, existentialist philosophy can only be true if it affirms and denies something and
presupposes “something which as existentialist philosophy it can neither affirm nor deny” that is true
humanity. Barth, CD III/2, 201.
529
For Barth theistic anthropology is a valid description of humanity in that “from the very outset it
understands [humanity] as theonomously rather than autonomously determined.” Barth, CD III/2, 201.
While Barth previously perceived that theistic anthropology was impossible based upon the phenomena of
the human, now based on the presuppositions of true humanity outlined above Barth is able to state
“without hesitation that a theistic anthropology ... can describe in a far-reaching and exhaustive way that
which constitutes the potentiality of real man.” Barth, CD III/2, 201.
530
In this Barth stands directly in the footsteps of Calvin who understands the work of the ungodly in
physics, dialectics, mathematics, and other like disciplines as having benefit and assistance in the ministry
of the believer and suggests that those who neglect God’s free gift in these areas “ought to suffer just
punishment for our sloths.” Calvin, Institutes, I, 2,II, 275.
531
Barth, CD III/2, 202.
532
Barth, CD III/2, 202.

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Conclusion
This chapter has explored themes contained within §44 of Barth’s Church
Dogmatics. It began with an explanation of what it means for humanity that Jesus Christ
existed as a creature for God. It is in this unique experience of the one true human that
Barth finds an ontological grounding for true humanity, in light of its status as created
creature. It is in this section that Barth develops what may be best described as a
description of Christological humanity within the cosmos, which highlights six unique
features of the experience of Christ’s humanity. While these six aspects are unique to
Christ, they will later form the foundation of an understanding of human phenomena
generally.
In the second section of this chapter Barth’s discussion of the phenomena of
humanity is explored in the context of daily existence, in light of who this one human
was. While Barth is emphatic that humanity must understand itself solely in light of this
one person, he is quick to point out that “Anthropology cannot be Christology, nor
Christology anthropology.”533 As a result, Barth seeks to explore the reality of humanity
in light of who Christ is. This exploration leads to a discussion of six points that provide
the framework that highlight human reality in this Christological relationship to God.
Finally this chapter reaches a lengthy discussion centred around Barth’s concept of
true humanity, what he terms “real man.” This concept of true humanity is a live
possibility for humanity generally based on the person and work of the one man Jesus
Christ. True humanity is an existence based in faith, faith that is provided by God through
Christ. Humanity, having been encompassed by Christ, can be seen in a true reality that is
free from abstractions.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
533

Barth, CD III/2, 71.

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Humanity is defined first and foremost by the fact that they are continually
confronted by the reality that in Jesus Christ they have a “human Neighbour, companion
and brother … [and] we cannot break free from this neighbour.”534 This reality means
that while humanity exists within and as part of creation, it has a unique reality, as a
result of its relationship with God in Christ. Humanity stands on this special ground not
because of any human action but as the result of two interconnected actions of God:
election of humanity in Christ and the act of revelation of the Word of God, which is
Christ.
The two acts of God, revelation and election, work to establish humanity in the
reality of grace, which creates the possibility of human reciprocity in gratitude. Humanity
thus is ontologically grounded in the realities of divine grace and the truly human
response of gratitude. This act of gratitude is a uniquely human reality that can only be
uniquely directed to God.
This encounter of grace opens the door for human freedom and human
responsibility. These two realities, lived in obedience to the Word of God – as a result of
God’s invocation – forms the very basis of an ontological description of humanity that is
true to our reality as created by the Creator God. This ontological description is not the
sum of human self-understanding but the beginning of it. Furthermore, it also provides an
understanding of who humanity is without separating humanity from creation or the
Creator. Barth’s definition of humanity respects the reality of humanity without
downplaying the very real reality of sin within the human experience as a result of the fall
of humanity.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
534

Barth, CD III/2, 133.

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This Christological anthropology is a theme in Barth’s theology from his earliest
writings following his break with liberal theology. Barth’s Christological anthropology of
true humanity can be seen as a distinct development of the ideas held as early as his
essays “The Righteousness of God” and “The Christian’s Place in Society,” as well as
The Epistle to the Romans.535 Barth’s anthropology has often been cast in the dower light
of the divine “No” of The Epistle to the Romans, however, this exposition, along with the
work of others, shows that Barth’s anthropology was truly one of true hope for true
humanity, a hope founded solely upon the work of Christ.536

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
535
536

Spencer, Clearing a Space, 122.
Forde, “Future,” 74.

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CHAPTER 4: BARTH’S CHRISTOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
FOLLOWING §44
Following Barth’s development of “Real Man” in §44 of his Church Dogmatics, he
continues to use and explore the same conception of humanity throughout the subsequent
pages of the Church Dogmatics. Building upon the consistent and continued
Christologically described anthropology within the writing of Barth, this chapter explores
the major categories of Barth’s Church Dogmatics in order to confirm the presence and
influence of this Christological anthropology throughout these subsequent sections of the
Church Dogmatics. In order to provide a relevant exploration, this chapter provides a
brief overview of a number of the ways that Barth’s Christological concept of humanity
figures in to various aspects of his thought.537
To accomplish such a task, this chapter moves through various sections of the
Church Dogmatics in the order that they appear in the text, highlighting some significant
aspects of Barth’s Christological anthropology. This chapter will begin by further
developing a description of true humanity as a result of this Christological description,
chiefly: humanity in its determination as the covenant-partner of God, humanity as soul
and body, true humanity as reconciled humanity, and the being of humanity in Jesus
Christ. Next, this chapter will examine how this Christological conception of humanity
exists alongside the experience of sinful human, or the inhuman individual. Finally, this
chapter will look at the implications of Barth’s Christological anthropology in daily life:
first in examining Jesus Christ as Royal Man, then exploring Barth’s concept of vocations
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
537

As an overview this chapter cannot not be exhaustive, but it can illustrate how the very same
Christological anthropology that was fleshed out in §44 continues to factor into Barth’s Church Dogmatics.
This chapter will engage with the sections of the Church Dogmatics that follow §44 which most clearly and
significantly point to Barth’s Christological anthropology.

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for true humanity. This chapter follows Barth’s own direction within these particular
sections, and so it is important to be reminded that this chapter’s argumentation, along
with the Church Dogmatics, is presented in a less sequential and a more cumulative
format.538
Humanity in its Determination as the Covenant-Partner of God
Barth follows his discussion of true humanity, which is the realization of his
Christological-ontological basis for humanity, with a focus on the external reality of true
humanity. True humanity’s external reality is one of relationship – corresponding
relationships between God and humanity – as a being in encounter. This encounter occurs
within human reality, between fellow humans, as well as with God. True humanity “is
human in this encounter, and in this humanity it is a likeness of the being of its Creator
and a being in home in Him.”539 This means that true humanity continues to exist not
only as determined by God, as seen in §44, but also in a continual relationship with God,
made possible through the determination of humanity by God, which occurred in Jesus
Christ.
This Christological anthropology – humanity as determined not by autonomous
volition, but Christ’s person and work – leads Barth to describe humanity in a way that
seems counter to his view in The Epistle to the Romans, as God’s covenant-partner. As
Barth states, true Humanity “lives with God as His covenant-partner. For God has created
him to participate in the history in which God is at work with him and he with God; to be
His partner in the common history of the covenant.”540 However, this partnership is not in
opposition to the “No” of Romans, but is its result. Humanity is a covenant partner with
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
538

Webster, “Creation and Humanity,” 99.
Barth, CD III/2, 203.
540
Barth, CD III/2, 203.
539

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God because it enters into the grace of God – into an encounter with Christ – leaving
behind its purely human centred understanding.541
It must be noted that while Barth conceives of true humanity as being in a
reciprocal partnership with God,542 at no point does Barth collapse the significant
ontological gap that stands between God and humanity. “[Humanity] belongs to God, but
he is still a creature and not God.”543 This means that
The being of God cannot be compared with that of [humanity]. But it
is not a question of this twofold being. It is a question of the
relationship within the being of God on the one side and between the
being of God and that of man on the other .... The correspondence
and similarity of the two relationships consists in the fact that the
eternal love in which God as the Father loves the Son, and as the Son
loves the Father in which God as the Father is loved by the Son and
as the Son by Father, is also the love which is addressed by God to
man.544
God thus exists in a relationship to humanity, but is not bound to humanity outside of His
own will. God continues to exist in divine freedom in relation to humanity and is only
limited by his own action that is made within this freedom. In this Barth’s concept of
God, and thus his concept of humanity stand in stark contrast to that of Hegel.545 While
the Hegel’s panentheism conceives of God being bound to the world and humanity,546
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
541

When Barth’s anthropological description in III/2 is understood as a result of the “No” of Romans,
instead of counter to it, one must reject von Balthasar’s assertion of Barth’s turn to analogy and
reconciliation with Emil Brunner’s concept of natural theology. Barth’s tone towards other fields of study
may have changed, but this is only because his perspective has changed on them – from human selfperception to human perception made possible because of the Christological reality of Jesus Christ. In this
one must disagree with von Balthasar’s reading, there remains no true “pre-understanding” nor does Barth
turn to side with Brunner. von Balthasar, Karl Barth, 105-151.
542
Barth, CD III/2, 203.
543
Barth, CD III/2, 204.
544
Barth, CD III/2, 220.
545
Price, Anthropology, 60.
546
As John Cooper points out for Hegel “it is the Absolute’s nature to posit itself in order to become
completely one with itself. Not having a world is not an option for God. ‘It belongs to his being, his essence
to be the creator.’ Thus God is not free not to posit the world and not free to not to realize himself
dialectically in and through the world. ‘Without the word God is not God’.” John Cooper, Panentheism
(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 112.

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Barth understands God as willing to bind Himself to humanity, however, it is only by His
willing that this occurs. In this God retains complete aseity.
For Barth, humanity’s true identity is found in relationality first and foremost with
God. This basic human form is found in the question of the humanity of Jesus. The
application of this criterion means that
a whole sphere of supposed humanity is ruled out as non-human from the very first,
and cannot be considered, because that which in its is regarded and alleged to be
human stands in a contradiction to the humanity of Jesus which denies the essential
similarity between Him and us and therefore excludes the possibility of the human
creature as a covenant-partner of God, thus destroying the unity of the creation and
covenant.547
True humanity is established in a reciprocal relationship that is established by God.
This relationship does not deny human action or human ability, but grounds both action
and ability antecedently within God’s action. It is within this context that Barth
establishes a theological basis for the realization of one’s vital, natural, and intellectual
aptitudes within one’s life-act. This realization provides the theological basis for Barth to
implore Christian action in human realities. This basis means that humanity is not defined
by the Cartesian self-thinking ego, but by Christ. Human relationships are not based
primarily in a human propensity for relationships, but because of Christ’s relational
nature — both with His fellow members of the Trinity and with fellow humanity.
Humanity seeks to explore and yearns truth in all number of fields not fundamentally
because of a human sense of wonder and thirst for knowledge, but because of God’s
revelatory acts in Christ, which provide humanity with true knowledge. True humanity
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547

Barth, CD III/2, 226. For this reason it is possible for the individual to choose to exist within this nonhuman reality, but it cannot destroy the truly human reality that God has established within the world.
Humanity can despise this reality, it can scorn or dishonour it, but humankind cannot slough it off or break
free from it. “Humanity is not a deal which he can accept or discard, or a virtue which he can practice or
not practice.” Barth, CD III/2, 228. In this the individual may reject life as true humanity in Christ;
however, Christ remains a reality above and surrounding the individual, which means that humanity cannot
escape the reality of God.

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loves, not principally because of a human desire to give and receive love, but because
God is love and thus “We love because He first loved us.”548 Barth’s Christological
humanity becomes the impetus for an individual “participation in scholarship and art,
politics and economics, civilization and culture.”549 The participation of true humanity
within these realms is an act of worship in that in these actions of true humanity should
divulge the relationality of true humanity.550 Such a perception of humanity means that
worship is no longer bound by the walls of a church. Rather, worship subsumes the whole
of human action when this reciprocity is realized. For the Christian, there is no longer a
division between sacred and secular action, the whole of life is worship and an expression
of one’s relationship as true humanity with God.
Worship thus occurs not in the singing of songs but in the living out of the
realization that true human action follows the action of God. Worship of God is not
merely something that is “tacked on to” one’s day, but is the very premise of one’s life.
Worship takes place when the individual realizes that true actions are first of all preceded
by God’s establishment of the human in relationship. It is for this reason that Paul could
state, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”551 Worship occurs when
business people act with a mindset that understands others — clients and employees —
not as objects to be manipulated but instead as individuals, who are also in relationship to
God. Creative acts become worship when these acts cease to be autonomous selfexpression and instead seek to express the true self, the self that is in a relationship with
the God who created the vast universe.
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548

1 John 4:19 (NRSV).
Barth, CD III/2, 249.
550
Barth, CD III/2, 249.
551
Philippians 3:13 (NRSV).
549

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Humanity as Soul and Body
It is in §46 that Barth finally turns to what typically stands as an introduction of
theological discussion of humanity,552 that being the relationship between human’s
spiritual and physical reality. Here Barth shifts from humanity’s being in itself to
humanity’s being as it exists as an existential reality. Even in understanding the human as
body and soul, Barth returns to his Christological source. He writes, “Here too, then, we
first go back to the source of understanding which alone can be authentic and normative
for the theological doctrine of man’s nature. We find our bearings and our instruction as
we look to the constitution of the humanity of Jesus.”553
Barth understands that the human exists as a unity of body and soul and it cannot be
understood outside of the mutual dependence of one upon the other as a result of Christ’s
existence. “The Jesus of the New Testament is supremely true man in the very fact that
He does not conform to the later definition [that being a division of body and soul], and
far from existing as the union of two parts or two ‘substances,’ He is one whole man,
embodied soul and besouled body:554 the one in the other and never merely beside it.”555
As a result, Barth rejects any and all elevation of one particular aspect of human reality
over another. Humanity is not simply a soul that must experience embodiment before
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552

Examples of this can be seen in Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, 219-225; Pannenberg, Systematic, 2:175277; and Berkhof, Systematic, 191-201.
553
Barth, CD III/2, 327.
554
Barth here follows the lead of the earlier John Calvin who argues that humanity stands as the imago Dei
both in body and soul. Calvin, Institutes I, 1, XV, 190. In addition, Calvin argues that body and spirit
cannot be separated and that both are interconnected in both sin and redemption. Calvin, Institutes I, 2, III,
289.
555
Barth, CD III/2, 327. Barth’s understanding of humanity as a union of body and soul is radically counter
the young Augustine, still under the influence of Manichaeism, who emphasized the significance of the
soul over the body. However, Barth’s concept of humanity as a union of body and soul is congruent with
the later developments of Augustine’s mature concept of the unity of body and soul. This later development
resulted from Augustine’s shift away from earlier platonic thought forms to more Hebraic forms. Roland
Teske, “Augustine’s Theory of Soul” in The Cambridge Companion to Augustine, eds. Eleonore Stump and
Norman Kretzman (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 26.

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freedom nor simply is it a fleshly robot that is abused, perverted, or exploited. It is a soul
and body that have been called and encountered by God.556 Following Barth, “To be
human is to be created in the imago dei; to be created by God in the image of God is to
have intrinsic worth.”557
As a result of Barth’s Christological anthropology he views human ontological
existence before noetic existence, as a result of human dependence “on the fact that
humanity is not without God.”558 Humanity with God is. Humanity without God “has
neither being nor existence.”559 It is for this reason that humanity finds itself in a unique
ontological reality among creation.560 The truly human ontological reality is one wherein
the human exists as body and soul, body and soul that is united,561 both of which serve
unique functions.562 Both soul and body are perceived in thought and activity, first by the
soul “both as desire and volition, and that the body follows.”563 In this concept of true

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556

This unification of soul and body reminds the Christian that humanity is a physical reality that is
Christological conditioned. This means that a human’s physical needs and reality cannot be divorced from
their reality as renewed humanity in the work of Christ. Degradation of the human body either by scarcity
or gluttony, over exertion or slothfulness, is a degradation of the whole of the individual, an individual that
is established in Christ. The denigration of the body to an object, either sexually or economically is a
denigration of the soul and thus an affront to the God who exists in relationship in this besouled body. True
humanity can never ignore its physical health nor overlook the physical well-being of fellow humanity
(James 2:14-17). As a result of this union of body and soul, as seen in Christ, Christians must be concerned
for the world, both for the condition of their soul and of their body.
557
Rigby, “Real Word ,” 62.
558
Barth, CD III/2, 345.
559
Barth, CD III/2, 345.
560
As Barth succinctly points out, humanity’s particular status in creation exists in its unique relationship
with God. “Men and beasts can be born, but men alone can be baptised.” Barth, CD III/2, 359.
561
As Barth states, the existence of the soul “is not without body. It is, only as it is soul of a body. Hence
every trivialisation of the body, every removal of the body from the soul, and every abstraction between the
two immediately jeopardises the soul. Every denial of the body necessarily implies a denial of the soul.”
Barth, CD III/2, 370.
562
It is for this reason that Barth states that “The inner unity of human creatureliness and therefore the
interconnection of soul and body consists in the fact that in man the soul is the quickening factor aroused
by the Spirit and the body is that which is quickened by it and lives.” Barth, CD III/2, 394.
563
Barth, CD III/2, 418.

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human reality, Barth denies the possibility of dualism, as seen in Kant,564 while affirming
the duality of human nature. Humanity must be understood as body and soul together.
Both are equally created and in relationship to God.565
In §46 Barth describes true humanity in light of the person of Christ. When
humanity is understood in light of Christ, Barth perceives that it is impossible for
humanity to be truly understood except in a union between body and soul, a union that is
based and illumed solely by Christ. This union of body and soul that Barth sees in the fact
that Paul lives by faith “in the flesh,”566 as faith is a reality of both the human soul and
body.567
True Humanity as Reconciled Humanity
For Barth, true humanity exists as a result of the fulfilled covenant of God, which
brings about the reconciliation of humanity. This for Barth is “the heart and subjectmatter of the Christian faith, of the origin of Christian live, of the content of Christian
hope.”568 The Christian life can only exist as a result of the message that is Jesus Christ
and never the reverse. Reconciliation is the result of God’s divine work to unite Himself
to humanity; this means that true humanity exists in a reality of the Christmas theme
“God with us.” This statement is the core of the Christian message and the decisive
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564

As Daniel Price points out, “Barth’s anthropology, when seen in the light of the wider scope of the
Dogmatics, indicates that Barth had no intention of abiding by Kant’s distinction between nominal and
phenomenal. Price, Anthropology, 285.
565
As a result of this concept of soul and body, Barth suggests that “we necessarily contradict the abstractly
dualistic conception” that Barth has commonly referred to as “Greek” but, as he notes, has also found its
way into the church and at times has also be described as “the traditional Christian view.” Barth, CD III/2,
418. At the same time Barth cannot accept the adoption of monism that solely emphasizes humanity’s
embodiment over and against this Greek dualism. Barth, CD III/2, 382. Nor is a third option, such a
Christological conception of humanity able to adopt a monistic spiritualism, which solely emphasizes
human spirituality at the expense of embodiment. Barth, CD III/2, 390.
566
Galatians 2:12, (NRSV).
567
As Paul states in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Whatever you do [emphasizing bodily actions], do everything for
the glory of God.” (NRSV).
568
Barth, CD IV/1, 4.

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general statement of the community that is formed in Christ’s reconciliation of humanity,
the act of reconciling humanity into true humanity.569
True humanity exists as the result of salvation, and salvation stands as the process
that is the creation of true humanity. As a result, “Salvation is fulfillment, the supreme,
sufficient, definitive and indestructible fulfillment of being. Salvation is the perfect being
which is not proper to the created being as such but is still future.”570 True humanity is
thus a reality that may be experienced for the Christian in the here and now, yet it cannot
be fully and completely experienced before the parousia. This does not mean that for
Barth true humanity is an impossibility in this life; instead, reconciliation continually
occurs and reoccurs. The truth of reconciliation, “God with us,” is a reality that must
always be learned a fresh. In this life, true humanity can be experienced, but in human
freedom, it is an experience that must be re-learned and re-experienced when humanity
has forgotten its Christological ontological reality and attempts to act autonomously for
itself.571 Because of this possibility of re-learning, true humanity continues to experience
reality with God, being encircled by Christ, as a result of God’s own election and
action.572
The Being of Humanity in Jesus Christ
For Barth humanity cannot exist outside of the reality of Jesus Christ. Properly
speaking of humanity requires speaking of Jesus Christ. “We cannot speak of the being of
man except from the standpoint of the Christian and in light of the particular being of

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569

Barth, CD IV/1, 4-5.
Barth, CD IV/1, 8.
571
Barth, CD IV/1, 4-8.
572
Barth, CD IV/1, 12.
570

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man in Jesus Christ.”573 Because true humanity is encompassed by Christ, humanity
cannot be separated from Christ. To attempt to do so results in the creation of an inhuman
reality, the non-human. In this sin, selfish action, and harm are not actions of human
beings, but inhuman beings. Actions outside of the reality and nature of Christ cease to be
human and exist outside of the ontological reality of true humanity.
For Barth, true humanity is a reality that comes to be experienced and known by the
Christian in his or her encounter with Jesus Christ. To be a Christian is to know and
experience Jesus Christ and thus to know and experience true humanity. This means that
true humanity is both an existential and noetic reality. True humanity is not simply a state
of being in relationship with Jesus, nor the experience of peace and joy. While true
humanity includes these, true humanity is a human life lived in light of the knowledge of
Christ, of His relationality, in which the redeemed reach out to the other around them,
bringing one’s neighbour in contact with the radical existential and noetic realities of true
humanity.
Barth is clear on the scope of true humanity. God has given the experience of true
humanity to “all men in Jesus Christ.”574 Humanity is universally bound to the true
humanity of Jesus Christ and thus has universal access to the reconciliation that is
salvation worked out in the person of Jesus Christ. However, Barth notes that “We cannot
expect that all men will be in a position to know and to give an account of Him and
therefore of their true and actual being as it is hidden and enclosed and laid up from them
in Him.”575 This means that while salvation is universally accessible to humanity in the
election of God, this election does not mean that humanity will be willing or in a position
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573

Barth, CD IV/1, 92.
Barth, CD IV/1, 91.
575
Barth, CD IV/1, 91.
574

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to respond to the salvific work of Jesus Christ. For Barth, salvation is universal, human
response to salvation is not.
It is in his discussion of the location of true humanity in Jesus Christ that Barth
describes the essence of the truly human life. True humanity, having been reconciled to
God in Jesus Christ has three unique aspects, each of which are uniquely Christologically
grounded. True humanity is a reality that is made up of the experience of faith,576 love,577
and hope.578
It is in Christ that the divine “No,” pronounced in The Epistle to the Romans, lives
as well as the divine “Yes,” seen in the description of true humanity, and forms the
justification of humanity. “Justification definitely means the sentence executed and
revealed in Jesus Christ and His death and resurrection, the No and the Yes with which
God vindicates Himself in relation to covenant-breaking man, with which He converts
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576

For Barth, faith is more than intellectual assent to doctrine, nor is it simply confidence in the person and
work of the man Jesus Christ among humanity, it is only in the faith of the Other, of Jesus Christ Himself,
who is High-priest as he officiates, speaks, and acts for us, that we can know and cling to. True faith, which
is Christological, is intellectual assent and confidence that is not only grounded in Christ but established by
Christ in his faithful act and is first known and held by Christ and later shared with humanity. Barth, CD
IV/1, 91. Christological faith is the very basis of true humanity. Faith “is the only form of this new being.”
Barth, CD IV/1, 96-97. Therefore, faith is the means of humanity’s relationship to God, the reality that
brings about an experience of righteousness and acceptance by God. In this, faith is the basis for love and
hope in that faith is the “act of obedience, that subjection to the will of God acting and speaking in His own
cause and therefore in sovereign power that acknowledgement of the honour and glory of God in relation to
man.” Barth, CD IV/1, 96-97. This is an act that is first and foremost grounded in Christ’s action.
577
For Barth, Christian love is a reaction to God’s love, as faith is a reciprocation of Christ’s faithfulness in
his justifying sentence, “God Himself is love and revealed Himself as such by sending His only Son into
the world in order that we might live through Him … In Jesus Christ God has created a final and
indestructible fellowship between Himself and all men, between all men and Himself, a fellowship which is
final and indestructible because it is based upon His own interposition and guaranteed by it.” Barth, CD
IV/1, 102. It is this interposition and guarantee that is the actualization and revelation of His love. This love
is thus “the direction to which man is subjected and the Christian love which receives it resounds.” Barth,
CD IV/1, 102. Christian love is love for both God and fellow humanity, these two forms of love are
parallel, but cannot be equated, nor can one overtake the other. “Love to others cannot exhaust itself in love
to God, nor can love to God exhaust itself in love to others. The one cannot be replaced and made
unnecessary by the other.” Barth, CD IV/1, 106.
578
Barth, CD IV/1, 93. For Barth, hope is the mark of true Christianity. The truly Christian life cannot be
found outside of hope, both hope for themselves and for the world as a whole. Barth, CD IV/1, 118.
Christian hope, which is Christologically grounded, “is a present being in and with and by the promise of
the future, a being which is seized by the promise of God and called.” Barth, CD IV/1, 121.

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him to Himself and therefore reconciles him with Himself.”579 In this execution,
sanctification is the continual existence of true humanity in that it is the “claiming of all
human life and being and activity by the will of God for the active fulfillment of that
will.”580 Jesus Christ is the divine pledge that this is a possibility and a reality, both
current and future. Jesus Christ makes God’s proclamation both a present and future
reality. This is because “He is the man who lives not only under the verdict and direction
of God but also in the truth of His promise.”581 In Jesus Christ humanity experiences the
promise of the future reality. “Because God has made Himself one with it in Jesus Christ,
because He Himself was and is present in it, it has the divine pledge of its future life.”582
Jesus Christ is thus both the “now” and the “not yet” of the Christian life. Jesus Christ is
the promise and experience of true humanity that is fully experienced in the realization of
the Christian’s hope.
The Way of the Son of God into the Far Country and the Human Experience
Jesus Christ is the foundation of the true human being. This means that true human
history is founded and established in Jesus Christ: history is the drama of God’s
interaction with His people. In this the atonement that occurs in Jesus Christ takes
precedence over all other history.583 The historical nature of the atonement proves itself
in the fully responsible attitudes of true humanity. This means that “when it is revealed
and grasped and known, it is so in its priority, its presence, its superiority to all other
histories, to the existence of all the men who take part in it. In this sense everyone who

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579

Barth, CD IV/1, 96.
Barth, CD IV/1, 101.
581
Barth, CD IV/1, 115.
582
Barth, CD IV/1, 116.
583
Barth, CD IV/1, 157.
580

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knows it as truth knows in it the truth of his own existence.”584 Christ’s atonement and
the resulting transformation of humanity is thus both a noetic and existential reality,
knowing cannot be separated from experiencing.
It is possible for the individual to seek to establish an autonomous history outside
of this Christological history, the human can choose to stand outside of our relationship
with God; however, this is to our detriment, just as it was for the prodigal son.585 When
the individual “tries to be his own master, and to control his relations with God and the
world and his fellow-man. And as he does so, the onslaught of nothingness prevails
against him, controlling him in death in an irresistible and senseless way and to his own
loss.”586 In this humanity enters into non-being, into an ontological impossibility, despite
the grace of God.587 As Barth states, “[t]his is the circulus vitiosus of the human plight
presupposed and revealed in and with the grace of God. And there is no man who,
whether he experiences it or not, is not in this plight.”588 This vicious circle is a reality
continually experienced within the Christian life as Paul in Romans.589
The Christian, the one who is elected by God “not only suffers and experiences
[this vicious circle]. He knows it. He knows that he must perish. He considers that he
must die. The connection between his guilt and the righteous judgment of God is
constantly before him.”590 True humanity cannot escape this reality, humanity exists
under the “Yes” of God, only because they have first experienced the “No” of God, in
Christ. “Occasionally and for the moment he may forget it, he may deceive himself about
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584

Barth, CD IV/1, 157.
Luke 15:11-32.
586
Barth, CD IV/1, 173.
587
Berkouwer, Grace, 88.
588
Barth, CD IV/1, 173.
589
Romans 5:14-20.
590
Barth, CD IV/1, 173.
585

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it, he may fall asleep to it. But he would not be the elect of God if the dreadful fact did
not awaken him again, and pursue him even in his dreams … there is no escape from
it.”591 Humanity can forget or overlook the reality that it exists before God, but it cannot
escape this reality. To exist as true humanity it must allow itself to be struck by the
results of its sinful reality. When humanity acts as the prodigal who has journeyed into
the far country and squandered all that was gifted by the father, the individual must return
to the Son who also journeyed into the far country and remained faithful.
The Pride of Humankind and the Fall of Humankind
While Barth conceives of true humanity as Christologically conditioned, he does
not overlook the possibility and even the reality of a sinful existence. Sin in humanity is
not simply an action but stands as a state. Sin is a verb, but it also creates a noun. “Sin of
man, or rather man of sin, man as he wills and does sin, man as he is controlled and
burdened by sin.”592 When humanity looks beyond its Christological reality, attempting
to reach an autonomous reality, the individuals cease to exist as they were created, and
humanity removes itself from the ontological, noetic, and existential reality that is true
humanity, throwing itself into the reality of non-being.
The knowledge of sin, like anthropology generally, can only be recognized as a
result of God’s revelation in Christ. “Even in the knowledge of sin which [one] has in the
sphere of self-understanding without listening to the Word of God, he is the man of sin
and therefore one who has no knowledge, who is completely closed to this negative
determination.”593 For Barth, knowledge of sin can only come about as a result of human
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591

Barth, CD IV/1, 173.
Barth, CD IV/1, 358.
593
Barth, CD IV/1, 361. As Joseph Mangina shows, while many readers of Barth consider Barth’s concept
of sin, as a reality made known through a knowledge of God, as remaining at a purely formal level, Barth
592

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understanding of the anthropological situation that exists in Christ.594 Sin cannot be a
starting point for a theological description of humanity, as theologians and preachers
want to do.595 Instead, sin may only be spoken of after an understanding of Christ’s
perfection is initiated.
Any attempt to produce a doctrine of sin previous to both a doctrine of Christ and a
subsequent understanding of humanity, will “consciously or unconsciously, directly or
indirectly, move in the direction of this idol and his claim.”596 As John Webster points
out “to be human is to be united to Christ, then sin cannot be definitive of human
beings.”597 Barth’s concept of sin, as something that is only apparent through divine
revelation, and not something that is self-evident is a significant departure from
traditional Reformed modes of thought, as well as other theological traditions dating back
to the early creeds, which assumed that sin was self-evident. Barth’s anthropology and
hamartiology not only recognizes what Barth perceives to be a weakness in traditional
theological understandings of humanity and sin, but also comes to grips with the

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— no less than Kierkegaard — provides descriptions of sin that provide insights into familiar forms of
human behavior marked by sin. Mangina, Christian Life, 6-7. Here Barth stands clearly in line with his
predecessor John Calvin who states, “It is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself
unless he has first looked upon God’s face … For we always seem to ourselves righteous and upright and
wise and holy –this pride is innate in all of us—unless by clear proofs we stand convinced of our own
unrighteousness, foulness, folly, and impurity.” Calvin, Institutes, I, 1, I. 37.
594
Here Barth echoes the earlier Calvin who states that humanity must be “brought into a true knowledge”
which is brought about in the regenerate work of faith. Calvin, Institutes, I, 3, III, 595.
595
This can be seen in many Christians’ emphasis on the “Roman Road” to salvation. Beginning to discuss
Christianity not with God’s creative work or Christ’s Incarnation, but with human sinfulness as seen in
Romans 3:23. Such an emphasis was the central point of the early Fundamentalist preacher, Dwight L.
Moody who’s preaching simply involved the “‘Thee R’s’: Ruin by Sin, Redemption by Christ, and
Regeneration by the Holy Ghost.” George Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 21. When faith and thus true humanity is grounded not upon God’s work
but upon humanity, this inevitably leads to an anthropo-theology instead of a theo-anthropology. God
comes to be defined by human action and human need instead of humanity being defined by God’s
revelatory action.
596
Barth, CD IV/1, 365.
597
Webster, “Creation and Humanity,” 102.

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optimistic concepts of humanity that surrounded Barth throughout his career and continue
with us into present culture.598
Jesus Christ as Royal Man
As a result of Barth’s Christological concept of humanity, he understands Jesus
Christ as the “Royal Man.” This title points to the kingly office of Jesus Christ, which
exists because He is the Son of God and also the Son of Man. At this point Barth focuses
upon Jesus Christ “as the true and new man in virtue of this exaltation, the second Adam,
in whom there has taken place, and is actualized, the sanctification of all men.”599
Jesus of Nazareth exists as the kingly man in all of His mundane earthly reality.
Jesus existed as the greatest of all humanity and yet the least of all humanity. “He has
nothing of what the world counts as recognition and authority and honour and success …
His kingdom has neither the pomp nor the power, the extent nor the continuance, of even
the smallest of the human kingdoms which all the same it overshadows and questions.”600
Jesus existed as the royal man in a way that is counter to worldly conceptions and thus
revealed the life of true humanity in this humility.
Jesus’ kingly power appears radically counter to the world’s concepts of power.
“His power is present to men in the form of weakness, His glory in that of lowliness, His
victory in that of defeat … He who alone is rich is present as the poorest of the poor.”601
It is in this radically counter-cultural display of power that humanity glimpses the
existence of true humanity. This display of humility however, should not be seen as a
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598

Barth’s concept of sin, as requiring divine revelation, draws a strong parallel to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s
concept of meaning and understanding. Just as Wittgenstein’s shopkeeper acts in and creates knowledge of
four red apples in community with the shopper, so humanity comes to conceive of sin in community with
God in Christ. Kerr, After Wittgenstein, 57-58, 65.
599
Barth, CD IV/2, 155.
600
Barth, CD IV/2, 168.
601
Barth, CD IV/2, 168.

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condemnation of humanity but an exaltation of humanity, which occurs through the
encounter of humanity generally with this experience of true humanity in Jesus of
Nazareth. It is in this portrait of true humanity that humanity generally perceives the
royal man Jesus, who is “the image and reflection of the divine Yes to man and his
cosmos.”602 In this, Jesus’ existence as royal man, the head of all humanity, intersects
with his existence as true humanity, humanity in relationship with God.
His student, Eberhard Jüngel best sums up Barth’s exposition of the royal man:
Humankind can never receive its due as long as it seeks it within
itself. The same holds true for our reflections on the topic. We can
conceive what God intends for humankind only by reflecting on the
one human being that God himself has uniquely intended and
directed, and in whom his own divine being is taken up: Jesus Christ.
He is the royal man. And his royalty does not exclude but includes,
us. All humankind is reflected in him.603
It is in this existence as both royal and true humanity that Jesus encounters sinful
humanity. As seen in the miracle stories of the Gospels, Jesus does not encounter others
as sinners at fault in relation to God, but encounters these individuals as sufferers. Jesus
does not denounce individuals for their sin, but seeks to heal them from the result of sin –
human brokenness – by restoring their relationship to a right relationship to God.604
In this Barth takes the human experience of sin seriously, but does not see it as the
heart of the gospel, as it may have appeared in The Epistle to the Romans. Instead, the
definition of humanity and its sinful reality, even in Romans can only be understood first
in light of God’s work of both condemnation of humanity in Jesus Christ and the
reconciliation that is offered in Christ to all humanity, which is the possibility of a true
relationship with God.
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602

Barth, CD IV/2, 168.
Jüngel, “The Royal Man,” 128.
604
Barth, CD IV/2, 222-223.
603

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The Vocation of True Humanity
In Barth’s thinking, true humanity derives its vocation from the creative call that is
Jesus Christ. This redeemed humanity experiences a call to the “well-equipped witness
into the service of His prophetic work.”605 Humanity’s vocation is Christologically
grounded in that it is first of all Christ’s vocation; this human vocation is “instituted in
the actual fellowship with Jesus Christ.”606 As such, truly human work is the work
modeled by Christ on earth. Fellowship with Christ results in humanity’s call to the
“service of his prophecy, in the ministerium verbi divini [the ministry of the divine
Word], of the Word of reconciliation, and therefore in the service of God and his
fellowmen.”607 As a result, true humanity is called to continue the work of Christ in every
aspect of human reality. True humanity lives its life proclaiming the Word and in care of
fellow creation.
Barth is clear that it is impossible to bifurcate between apparent natural and supernatural volition, true humanity exists as a living out of the realities of proclamation and
care in all aspects of human life. There is no aspect of human life that can either be seen
as truly secular, when a life is lived in fellowship with Christ.608 Christ’s vocation, which
He shares with the sum of humanity, is a spiritual calling. “However for Barth this does
not mean something that is supra-temporal and supra-historical, and therefore
transcendentalizing. Barth uses it “in the New Testament sense of pneumatic, with its
implication of the supreme concretion of temporal and historical process.”609 This calling
has a spiritual reality because it exists in and is given by the Holy Spirit. It is by the Holy
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
605

Barth, CD IV/3.2, 481.
Barth, CD IV/3.2, 482.
607
Barth, CD IV/3.2, 482.
608
Barth, CD IV/3.2, 482-483.
609
Barth, CD IV/3.2, 502.
606

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Spirit that this call or vocation is given and it is by the Holy Spirit that humanity is able
to live out this reality.610
In Barth’s understanding, Christian vocation does not exist in the individual but in
humanity generally. Humanity as a whole is called to exist and live in actions that are
grounded in Jesus Christ and thus the Word of God. This call exists on account of
Christ’s relationship to humanity generally, as existing as very man, the royal man, and
true humanity. Because of this, humanity cannot be understood in the corruption of our
mode of existence by sin, by anti-Christian activity, but only by openness to the other
human, as modeled by Christ.611 This does not mean that the imitation of Christ is a
formulaic repetition of the life of Christ, one could act exactly as Jesus commanded His
disciples and yet fail to act as they did, responding to Christ’s particular call. The
Christian life is not a replaying of Christ’s life on earth, but a response to His particular
call in particular situations, specific to the individual.612 Therefore, the call of the human
life is to fellowship with God in Christ. This fellowship has the affect that humanity is
called to respond, responding by sharing in the ministry that was established and is
maintained by Christ.
This Christological call to human vocations means that all people are called to
serve God in their daily lives. While Barth’s Christological conception of humanity —
with its relational nature of humanity — calls into question the humanity of isolationist

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610

Barth, CD IV/3.2, 512.
Barth, CD IV/3.2, 493.
612
Nimmo, “Ethical Agent,” 233. In this description of vocation, it can be argued that Barth is far less
clear of the ramifications of such a divinely sourced vocation for the laity than his predecessor John Calvin,
who saw the very work of the individual, the labour in the field or factory as dignified in it’s existence as a
human response to the “active providence of the heavenly Father.” Calvin, Institutes I, 1, X, 64.
611

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vocations613 as they separate the individual from the relationality that is basic to such an
understanding of humanity, Barth’s Christological concept of vocation provides a means
of living a human life amongst inhumanity. The relationship that is the basis of true
humanity means that this life is able to transcend inhumanity and brokenness to establish
an openness and relationship with those around them. True humanity is a life lived out of
Christ-like service, service to the created world, fellow humanity, and ultimately to God.
In the most inhuman environment, true humanity is able to bring glory to God, in
their motivation to act as stewards of the gifts given to them and to show the love of
Christ to those around them, even in the most seemingly insignificant of interactions.
Understanding Christological humanity means that following Christ the truly human
individual serves their neighbour, not out of coercion, but out of the love for fellow
humanity grounded in God’s love for humanity expressed in Christ. It is in these acts that
the Christian is able to follow the commands of Paul that “whether you eat or drink, or
whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.”614
Conclusion
The current chapter of this project has sought to highlight some of the
Christological aspects of Barth’s description of true humanity following §44 in volume
III/2 of his Church Dogmatics. This chapter has covered the existence of true humanity
as a covenant partner with God, true humanity as it is interconnected body and soul, true
humanity as humanity that has been reconciled to God in Christ and thus lives in Christ
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
613

Such as the long distance truck driver, telecommuter, and travelling business person, away from family
and kin for weeks and months at a time, as exemplified by the lead character in the 2009 film Up In The
Air. Ryan Bingham is a travelling employee who spends exponentially more time away from home—
moving from place to place—than he does at home and thus lacks any sense of community, relationships,
and any human reality. Up In The Air, DVD, directed by Jason Reitman. (Hollywood: Paramount Pictures,
2009).
614
1 Corinthians 10:31, (NRSV).

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as an alternative to the sinful reality of inhuman existence outside Christ, Christ’s nature
as Royal Man, and finally the volition of humanity that is provided.
Barth describes the external reality of true humanity as one of relationship, a
corresponding relationship between humanity and God, a relationship that is a response
to God’s relationship to humanity. Barth shows that this relationship is first established
by the man Jesus with God who shares this relationship with humanity generally through
His nature as fully man. Also, Barth is clear to present that it is because of Christ’s reality
as fully and utterly human, human in body and soul, that humanity must be considered
both body and soul. To consider humanity as merely embodiment or a spiritual reality is
to overlook the reality of Christ, to mar the image of humanity, and to create an idol of
one aspect of Christ’s human experience. Furthermore, true humanity can exist in the
human experience because of the work of reconciliation that occurs in Christ, re-uniting
humanity with God. Christ’s work allows for the reestablishment of the relationship that
humanity was created to exist in and marks true humanity, even when humanity
continually acts to break off this relationship. Such reconciliation means that the whole
humanity is encircled in Christ, that true humanity exists in a reality in Christ. True
humanity exists in the experience of living out faith, love, and hope. All three of these
attributes of the Christian life are first established in Christ’s life and shared with
humanity generally through Christ. These truly human realities of faith, love, and hope
are possible only because of God’s work to journey into the far country, to enter into
sinful humanity with grace, who suffers and experiences the results of inhuman actions of
humanity generally. It is by this suffering that Jesus Christ is able to overcome the guilt
of humanity and call humanity to encounter the joy of the divine “yes,” which is first

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experienced by Christ. Moreover, Barth suggests that sin can only be understood
Christologically; only once true humanity is understood is an individual able to
understand the depravity that results from sin. In addition, Jesus Christ exists as royal
man, this title means that Jesus Christ exists as fully human, but also that Christ exists as
the one person who is exalted as the second Adam and the sanctification of all humanity.
Jesus Christ is the first among all humanity in that He is the establishment of true
humanity, through His relationship with God, restoring humanity from its sinful
experience, through Christ’s condemnation and death. Finally, for Barth, Christ’s
existence as royal man opens the door for humanity to experience a true vocation. True
humanity exists in a fellowship – through Christ – with God. This fellowship creates the
call for humanity to share in the divine ministry of Christ on earth. This Christological
vocation is three fold as humanity is called to prophecy, the ministry of the divine Word,
and the work of reconciliation between fellow humanity and between humanity and God.
In this the life of true humanity is a life of proclamation and caring. True humanity exists
in a reality that seeks fellowship with God and others, and the restoration of creation to
the divine will of creation and humanity generally to the divine-human relationship that
humanity was created for.
This brief survey of Barth’s Church Dogmatics shows that his concept of
Christological anthropology continued to radically shape his theological writing
following §44, particularly in areas pertaining to human existence and human reality.
While Barth expresses a variety of different aspects of his Christological anthropology in
the later half of volume III and volume IV of Church Dogmatics than in his earlier
writing since The Epistle to the Romans, the core remains the same. Humanity can solely

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be understood in light of its relationship to Jesus Christ. As Hans Vium Mikkelsen states
“the difference between the early and late Barth expresses a change in the theological
accent.”615 Barth may emphasize different aspects of this relationship in these later
writings,616 but the core aspects of condemnation, salvation, and reconciling of humanity
in Christ remain the same.617

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
615

Mikkelsen, Reconciled Humanity, 25.
Mikkelsen suggests that these differences occur in that “with the help of a highly expressionistic
language the early Barth stresses the gap between God and the human being. The later Barth emphasises in
his Christology, especially in the teaching of the atonement in Barth, CD IV, how God, despite this gap, has
revealed himself for human beings in the man Jesus from Nazareth.” Mikkelsen, Reconciled Humanity, 25.
617
This is a view that is supported by John Webster who sees astonishing continuity in Barth from the time
of The Epistle to the Romans to the closing of Barth’s Church Dogmatics. Webster, Moral Theology, 1314.
616

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CHAPTER 5: ANALYSIS: BARTH’S ANTHROPOLOGY FROM THE EPISTLE
TO THE ROMANS TO CHURCH DOGMATICS VOLUME IV
This study has sought to examine the Christological anthropology throughout Karl
Barth’s corpus of work, starting first with The Epistle to the Romans, The Göttingen
Dogmatics, and The Word of God and the Word of Man through to his CD, chiefly §44
and beyond following the genetic-historical method.618 This study has demonstrated a
significant congruency that exists throughout his corpus of work. It is the goal of this
chapter to examine the various anthropological concepts throughout this corpus to
highlight the significant congruency that exists throughout these concepts as well as any
incongruence that may have become apparent through this study.
Within the first chapter of this project Barth’s early anthropological concepts are
examined following his break with liberalism. Barth’s work within The Epistle to the
Romans exists to attempt to tear down the anthropo-centric conceptions of theology that
existed within the world surrounding Barth in the first two decades of the twentieth
century. As early as The Epistle to the Romans, as well as throughout the collection of
essays within The Word of God and The Word of Man, and The Göttingen Dogmatics,
Barth seeks to develop theological concepts, including his anthropology, by beginning
not with human knowledge, but with divine revelation. This allows Barth to describe the
frightening situation of sinful humanity in light of this divine revelation and also to avoid
surrendering humanity over to the fall or to blind optimism. By contrast, Barth is able to
emphasize the possibility of transformation from death to life in Christ.

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618

McCormack, Critically Realistic Dialectical, ix.

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In The Epistle to the Romans Barth clearly rejects any form of human knowing and
rejects anthropological pride; however, Barth’s Christocentric emphasis means that while
humanity experiences the rejection of God, most clearly seen in Christ, humanity can also
experience divine renewal through the person of Christ. Thus, Christ stands as both the
rejected human and the elected human who makes the way for humanity to experience
the life of faith.
Moving into the first volumes of Barth’s Church Dogmatics, one notices an
apparent change in Barth’s style and tone, most notably against the backdrop of the
Göttingen Dogmatics. Yet these changes are largely stylistic in nature and do not reveal
any significant change in Barth’s theological motivation, direction, or foundation. This
continuity is particularly apparent within the context of Barth’s concept of anthropology
in that it continues to be inextricably linked to the person of Jesus Christ.619
In Barth’s doctrine of revelation he develops a concept of humanity that utterly
rejects any form of Cartesian certainty derived from the self. Instead he develops a
concept of humanity and human epistemology based solely upon God’s revelatory work
in Jesus Christ. This divinely revealed knowledge portrays true humanity as existing
within Christ and thus in a realm of true freedom, freedom that is radically different than
liberal concepts of freedom as liberty.
Barth continues in his doctrine of revelation to develop a concept of humanity,
based upon Christology that understands humanity as a unified whole, soul and body.
Barth rejects any degradation of either body or soul. True humanity, in light of the
person of Christ is equally both an existential and noetic reality. Humanity is both
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
619

While McCormack may downplay the significance of any changes throughout Barth’s work, flattening
Barth’s work and denying any personal development, his assertion of its continuity throughout is borne out
at this stage of the current project. McCormack, Critically Realistic Dialectical, 15.

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embodied and rational, a reality that is most apparent through Christ, who both cares for
the spiritual and physical realities of humanity around him.
Finally, as a part of Barth’s doctrine of revelation, his anthropology takes on a high
degree of relationality that is based upon Christ’s unique relationships, both with the
other members of the Trinity as well as with all of humanity. This means that as a result
of Barth’s Christological conception of revelation, his anthropology, which is also
grounded in the reality of Christology, is highly social. This social reality of humanity
means that estrangement experienced by humanity, either in relation to the Triune God or
fellow humanity, eviscerates the image in which humanity was created.
Barth’s concept of Christological anthropology is significantly shaped by and seen
within his concept of divine election. In the next section of this project I examined the
anthropological realities that are revealed within Barth’s unique concept of divine
election. For Barth, election is the reality in which humanity is brought into relationship
with God, through God’s choosing to share His grace with humanity in and through His
contact with humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. It is Jesus Christ who stands as the
rejected human, shouldering the strong rejection of humanity’s sin, which was earlier
described in The Epistle to the Romans. However, Jesus also stands as the elect and
redeemed human, the one human who defeated death and thus is able to share this
redemption with the whole of humanity. Humanity is Christologically in relationship with
God, because God chose humanity in Christ. God, in Christ overcomes the dialectic
reality that exists between God and humanity.
Finally, in this second chapter of this project I examined Barth’s concept of
humanity within the realm of creation, leading up to §44 of his Church Dogmatics.

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Barth’s whole doctrine of creation, including anthropology, is seen in this section to be
highly Christological, in that all of creation is seen to be related to Christ because of his
humanity. In Christ the whole creation gains status and significance because He stood
amongst creation. Thus humanity stands as part of creation, sharing a single creator with
the whole of creation, and yet chief among creation, not because of any particular human
attribute, but because of existence of the God-man Jesus Christ. The relationship that is
thus established by Christ between God and creation generally and humanity in particular
enlivens and redeems the whole of creation that is groaning under the weight of sin. As a
result, Christ makes real the anthropological existence that humanity was created to live
within.
It is this Christological existence that stands as the capstone of Barth’s
anthropology. Within §44 of his Church Dogmatics Barth beings by exploring what it
means for humanity generally that the one human, Jesus Christ, existed as a creature for
God. In this unique human experience, Barth finds the ontological grounding for true
humanity, an ontology that is thoroughly and exclusively Christological. While Barth has
continually been clear on the dialectic that continues to exist between God and humanity
– a dialectic that was bridged by God in Christ – it can never be collapsed for Barth.
“Anthropology cannot be Christology, nor Christology anthropology.”620
Because of Barth’s Christocentric form of theology and his emphasis on a
Christological conception of humanity, particularly within his Church Dogmatics, Barth
is able to describe a concept of humanity that is utterly true to its created nature before
God. True humanity for Barth, what he terms, “real man,” is an existence based upon the
reality of Christ and the faithfulness of Christ. Humanity, because of the work of Christ,
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
620

Barth, CD III/2, 71.

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is thus able to exist in a reality of reciprocity with God, a reciprocity that is marked by
gratitude for the truth revealed in Christ and the opportunity for redemption for humanity
offered in Christ.
This Christological concept of humanity allows for Barth to conceive of humanity
in a way that does not surrender humanity over to sin and separation from God. God has
entered human reality and made a way forward for humanity. Also, this Christological
concept allows Barth to take seriously the human reality of sin, first in the rejection that
Christ takes upon Himself on the cross and second in the reality of humans to choose
against themselves, to chose inhumanity and sin, moving against God and its very human
nature. It is not that sin does not exist for Barth, but that following his Christological
framework, sin is foreign to humanity’s true being.
Even following §44 of his Church Dogmatics, Barth continues to develop his
concept of anthropology as a direct offshoot of his Christology. Humanity continues to be
solely grounded upon the reality of Christ in the later sections of volume III and the
whole of volume IV, as seen in the overview of these sections in the fourth chapter of this
study. This Christological framework forms Barth’s concept of the human reality as body
and soul, the reconciliation of sinful humanity, the reality of those who freely chose to
exist outside of this reconciliatory relationship that is founded within Christ, the nature of
Christ as “Royal man,” and also humanity’s true calling or vocation.
True humanity experiences an external reality of relationality, in response to God’s
establishment of a relationship with humanity in the human person Jesus Christ.
Humanity, because of this reconciliation with God, experiences a renewal of inter human
relationships, relationships marked by an understanding of humanity’s true reality, which

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is free from the pride of fallen humanity. Humanity, through the life of Christ,
experiences a fully orbed life, one that accounts for both humanity’s embodiment and
existence as a soul. Humanity, as true humanity is able to live in a reality of faith, hope,
and love. Humanity is able to encounter these divinely given, truly human aspects
because of Christ’s work experiencing and overcoming the fallen nature of humanity, reestablishing humanity as it was created to be. This work of re-establishment is the work
of Christ as the “Royal man.” Christ stands as the human amongst all humanity because
of his existence, which is uniquely true to His nature as human.
These later paragraphs, volume III/2 §45 through IV.3.2 §73 express unique
realities and outcomes based upon Barth’s Christological understanding of humanity.
Humanity comes to be defined positively in light of the relationship that is made possible
and established for humanity in Christ. Humanity is understood to be reconciled to God
and to one another. It experiences unity of body and soul, and thus the true joy in the
calling of humanity to fulfill a divinely sourced vocation, within the later pages of
Barth’s Church Dogmatics. The later Barth certainly emphasizes the “Yes” of God
expressed to humanity over His “No,” counter to his earlier writing, particularly The
Epistle to the Romans wherein God’s grace is much more apparent in these writings than
the divine condemnation.
These later anthropological statements of Barth’s, describing the positive reality of
true humanity, are bound to his earlier negative anthropological statements describing
humanity’s fallibility, ineptitude, and brokenness as a result of human sin. The whole of
Barth’s anthropological description both positive and negative, early and late, are bound
to his consistent Christology. Christ is the Revealer of human fallibility and human

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ability made possible through Christ. Scripture tells of humanity both elected and
rejected, rejected and elected, at the same time. It is this dual reality that Barth describes
throughout his writing. In addition, humanity has continually been tied to Christ
throughout Barth’s theological description. He clearly has discussed different aspects of
the human reality in light of Christ throughout his various writings. It would even appear
that these differing aspects may be contradictory; however, these aspects find unity in
Barth’s emphasis on Christ.
For Barth humanity is defined by an existence of having been redeemed from sin,
and existing as body and soul in a true relationship of reciprocity with God, and by
consequence, fellow humanity. Humanity exists in this reality of freedom, first because
of God’s election of the human to be free for such reciprocity. Thus, true humanity has
many aspects of its life; however, all of these aspects are first and foremost founded upon
the reality of Christ. As a result of this, any attempt to reduce humanity to a single reality,
other than Christ, creates an idol and a false sense of humanity, a humanity that is ripe for
exploitation. Contemporary consumerism, classical capitalism, all forms of Marxist
socialism, and liberalism of ever stripe reduce humanity to an economic reality. Class,
race, socio-economic status, education, athletics, and creativity have the ability to reduce
humanity as a whole to a valuation based upon a particular human aspect. Pornography,
torture, war, health and wellness, as well as hedonism of all sorts, reduces humanity to an
embodiment — an embodiment that is either mortified or easily dispensed with. All of
these, and other human realities, despite their own inherent validity or invalidity as a
human reality, bring irreparable harm to humanity as a whole, as well as the individual in

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particular, when these realities substitute the one true reality, Christ, as the grounding and
definition of anthropology.
For Barth, humanity exists in vastly different realms – and this thus portrayed in
these vastly different realities – because of the fully orbed reality of Christ. Christ exists
as both condemned and redeemed, elected and rejected. Humanity, through its enveloped,
or englobed, nature in Christ, experiences these divergent realities.621 It is for this reason
that in 1956, as Barth was working on volume IV/3.1 of his Church Dogmatics he
declared that “God does not turn toward [the human] without uttering in inexorable
sharpness a ‘No’ to his transgression. Thus theology has no choice but to put this ‘no into
words within the framework of its theme.”622 Yet Barth continues, that “however, it must
be the ‘No’ which Jesus Christ has taken upon Himself for us men, in order that it may no
longer affect us and that we may no longer place ourselves under it.”623 As Ingolf
Dalferth states, “from the publication of his Epistle to the Romans in 1919 ... Barth did
not waver on this fundamental point: the reality to which theology refers is the
eschatological reality of the risen Christ and the new life into which we are drawn by the
Spirit.”624 Understanding the Christological theme that runs throughout Barth’s
anthropological description, from his break with liberalism to the end of Barth’s literary
cannon, means “the difference between the early and late Barth expresses a change in the
theological accent.”625 Barth may emphasize different aspects of this relationship in these

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
621

Any theological attempt to describe humanity without holding this tension together, of human rejection
and election, would simply be a truncation of both human experience and, more importantly, the narrative
of Scripture.
622
Karl Barth, “The Humanity of God” in The Humanity of God, trans. John Newton Thomas (Louisille:
Westminster John Knox Press, 1960), 60.
623
Barth, “The Humanity of God,” 60.
624
Dalferth, “Eschatological Realism,” 21.
625
Mikkelsen, Reconciled Humanity, 25.

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later writings than in earlier writings;626 however, the core (condemnation, salvation, and
reconciling of humanity in Christ) has remained constant in Barth’s writing.627
As this study has shown, while there was significant development within Barth’s
theological writing, as John Webster points out “the direction of Barth’s later work is
present in nuce”628 as early as the lectures entitled The Word of God and the Word of
Man, and The Epistle to the Romans, in Barth’s Christological concept.
In this Barth continued to develop and explore differing aspects of humanity in
light of the reality of Christ, yet the core of this exploration never altered, that being the
singular person of Jesus Christ, who was and is fully God and fully man, reveals the truth
regarding humanity, both in its fallen state and as it was created to exist with God, as the
image of Christ.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
626

Mikkelsen suggests that these differences occur in that “with the help of a highly expressionistic
language the early Barth stresses the gap between God and the human being. The later Barth emphasizes in
his Christology, especially in the teaching of the atonement in CD IV, how God, despite this gap, has
revealed himself for human beings in the man Jesus from Nazareth.” Mikkelsen, Reconciled Humanity, 25.
627
This is a view that is supported by John Webster who sees astonishing continuity in Barth from the time
of The Epistle to the Romans to the closing of Barth’s Church Dogmatics. Webster, Moral Theology, 1314.
628
Webster, Moral Theology, 30-31.

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Conclusion
This project has set out to examine Karl Barth’s anthropology, beginning with The
Epistle to the Romans, The Göttingen Dogmatics, and The Word of God and the Word of
Man through to his Church Dogmatics, chiefly §44. The purpose for which this
examination has been carried out is to determine if Barth demonstrates a coherent
theological treatment of humanity throughout his works. In this study Barth’s
anthropology has been shown to be constantly Christological throughout his corpus.
Despite the change in tone and emphasis, Barth’s anthropological concept remains
coherently Christological.629
Barth’s tone changed throughout his writing career, most notably between The
Epistle to the Romans and his Church Dogmatics,630 yet the theologian’s concept of
humanity never shifted from finding its centre and fullest expression in Jesus Christ. It is
first and foremost Christ who stands as the condemned human upon the cross under the
divine “No.” However, it is also Christ who is the first expression of a renewed
humanity, even in The Epistle to the Romans.
It is Christ who reveals to humanity its true reality, both as sinner and redeemed.
Christ stands as the One elect human, by which all of humanity stands as elected to
choose relationality with God. It is Christ who exists as the One human that is truly
faithful to its created reality. It is this existence that allows Barth to consider Christ as
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629

Barth’s acceptance of such an influential and high Christology must be seen as a radical reversal of his
mentor Adolf von Harnack, who saw the adoption of Christ as the Greek Logos as an aberration of early
Christian thought through the Hellenizing of Christianity, thus rejecting nicenal concepts of Christ. Adolf
von Harnack, What is Christianity, trans. Thomas Bailey Saunders (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1957),
200-204.
630
This change must be, at least partially, understood as a result of the purpose of these respective works,
Epistle to the Romans stands as a critical text, standing against much of Christendom that surrounded
Barth—particularly within the German Reformed world—as well as the wider culture of the day, while
Barth’s Church Dogmatics, in which stands as a creative theological text — in which Barth describes the
theological reality for the Church, in light of the person and work of the God-man Jesus Christ.

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true humanity or “real man.” This Christological perspective of humanity means that
while Barth’s tone or accent may have changed,631 there is certainly no “New Barth” as a
result of his anthropology, as Emil Brunner and Hans Urs von Balthasar propose.632
Barth’s anthropology, including the seminal work regarding the true nature of humanity
in volume III/2 of the Church Dogmatics, never experiences a transition away from the
Christological core that Barth establishes early in his writing career. Looking past all
other commentators, it is important to note what Barth states regarding his theology up to
1938. He writes, “My thinking in any event remains at one point the same as ever. It is
unchanged in this, that no so-called ‘religion is its object, its source, and its criterion, but
rather, as far as it can be my intention, the Word of God.”633 Even in the late lecture “The
Humanity of God,” while Barth suggests a change in emphasis from his early work, Barth
never turns from the Christological basis of his theology.634 In aspects or expressions
Barth’s writing may have changed or developed from the time of the Epistle to the
Romans, but the centrality of his High Christology never changed.
Implications
While never equated with one another, humanity is continually bound to Christ in
Barth’s thinking. All words that are truly said about humanity are first said in Christ and
it is for this reason that Barth’s anthropology is solely rooted in the eternal divinity and
humanity of Jesus Christ. As such, humanity is expressed most clearly and truly in Christ.
Any form of humanity grounded outside of Christ is but a mere figment or fabrication. In
light of the person of Christ, humanity must be understood in light of the krisis that exists
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631

Webster, Moral Theology, 30-31.
Brunner, “The New Barth,” 124; von Balthasar, Karl Barth, 105-151.
633
Karl Barth, How I Changed my Mind (Richmond: John Knox Press, 1966), 38.
634
Barth, “Humanity of God,” 38.
632

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because of who God is, that man is sinful. Yet this same definition shows the humanity
should be understood in light of the person of Jesus Christ. While humanity is sinful, God
has also elected it into relationality with the Divine.
Barth’s Christological concept of anthropology allows him to remain true to
biblical descriptions of humanity as both condemned sinner and renewed humanity. This
true humanity is not a denial of self as seen in ascetic traditions and Reformed theology
following Calvin,635 but an affirmation of true humanity. This true humanity is holistic, in
that it rejects platonic divisions between mind and body, while avoiding the monist
conception frequently seen in much contemporary theology under the influence of
science636 which understands humanity as a besouled body and an embodied soul — as
with one’s heart and lungs where the two cannot be separated from each other without
irreparable damage to the self but they also cannot be considered one object. While so
many descriptions of humanity within the church have sought to eschew our
embodiment, whether in order to avoid sinfulness or to avoid appeals to the natural
sciences, Barth shows that true humanity cannot exist without a bond between body and
soul, as seen in Christ.
In the shadow of Barth’s Christological anthropology, any attempt to subjugate or
oppress an aspect of humanity is not merely an affront to humanity generally but also to
Jesus Christ who exists as truly human while being truly God. In this, subjugation and
oppression of humanity is not only a sin against humanity but also a sin against God who
exists in relationship with true humanity. As a result of this Christians must stand against
this sinful action. Because a Christological anthropology reveals the hideous nature of
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
635
636

Calvin, Institutes, I,3, VII, 691.
Moreland and Rae, Body and Soul, 7.

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human subjugation and oppression of one other, Christians must work to oppose the
subjugation of our fellow human. Christians cannot stand idly by in the face of mass
human trafficking for sexual or economic slavery.637 Nor can Christians allow themselves
to be complicit in the horrific subjugation of humanity in industries such as the textile
and garment industry.638
For Barth, true humanity is an existence of life lived, as embodied soul, as the
image of Christ. The human body is not an item to be elevated to an object of worship,
nor denigrated to an object of scorn or abasement. In this Barth’s Christological
anthropology continues to stand radically against the major popular anthropological
conceptions in contemporary society. Barth’s understanding of humanity as existing as
body and soul in relation to the divine Christ stands in sharp critique of the abasement of
the body exemplified by North America’s pornography and fashion cultures and as an
object for consumption.639 In a world in which perceptions of sexuality are largely

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
637

While the slave trade has been illegal in Canada and the rest of the British Empire since 1807 and in the
United States since 1865, and counter to popular concepts of human freedom and modernization, scholars
such as Kevin Bales estimate that there are “more people in bondage today than during any other period in
history.” Benjamin Perrin Invisible Chains (Toronto: Viking Canada, 2010), 7. These new forms of black
or grey market slavery, which includes countless cases of forced prostitution, can occur anywhere as seen
in the 2003 case dubbed “Operation Relaxation” in Calgary Alberta. Perrin, Chains, 5. This hidden slavery
is not only tragic, but also catastrophic for the humanity of individuals involved. While this may appear at
first to be a minor problem in Canada bn, it should be noted that between 2005 and 2008 Royal Canadian
Mounted Police received twenty-eight complaints that were reported in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and
Manitoba alone! Perrin, Chains, 171. While often hidden away, this issue of human slavery — the
dehumanization of every aspect of an individual for pure economic rational — should send shockwaves
through Christians throughout this county — particularly when humanity is understood Christologically.
Slavery is not simply the abasement of an object — but the refusal that an individual exists as a human —
as one who exists in the shadow of Jesus Christ.
638
As revealed in the terrible loss of life in the Rana Plaza collapse on April 24th, 2013 in Dhaka
Bangladesh.
639
As Sascha Cohen states, “If porn reduces women to flesh, fashion whittles them to bone. If porn sees
women as toilets, fashion casts them as corpses. Both industries, together, contribute to misogyny.” Sascha
Cohen, “Flesh and Bones: Pornography and High Fashion as Complementary Mediums for the
Dehumanization of Women,” Off Our Backs 77, No. 1 (2007): 36.

175

defined by pornography640 and human physical expectations are set by manipulated and
artificial concepts of “beauty,” Barth’s Christological concept of humanity reminds the
Christian that the value of the human body is not set by these or other manipulative
industries, but because of its connection with the soul as a be-souled body. Equally,
Barth’s concept of Christological anthropology challenges the equal danger of celebrity
culture that idolizes the human body, or particular forms of the human body raising them
as the ultimate reality, denigrating the human soul as a secondary or non-reality. This
Christological definition of humanity means that Christian views of the body and beauty
cannot be tied to artificial constructs but understand that beauty is truly found in the
individual’s status as the creature of God. Humanity, elected by God, must understand
itself as “good” not because of its adherence to any human constructed concept, but
because it has been elected and redeemed as body and soul in Christ. Christians must
ground their understanding of the body not in popular culture’s understanding of the body
— negative or positive — but instead must ground their understanding of its spiritual
reality, as a God given aspect of humanity that is both marred by sin but elected and thus
redeemed in Jesus Christ.
While contemporary culture simultaneously worships the human physical form —
through celebrity culture and the fashion industries, with their descriptions of human
beauty. It simultaneously denigrates humanity’s physical form as a sexual object, through
pornography and sexual consumerism: sexual advertising, sex trafficking, enslavement
for the purposes of sex and all other commercial activities that reduce an individual, man
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
640

This is obvious in the large number of youths who are exposed to pornography at a young age. In a
recent study it was found that 72.8% of college students had been exposed to pornography before the age of
18, a number that climbs to 93% of boys under age of 18. Chiara Sabina, Janis Wolak, and Diavdi
Finkelhor, “The Nature and Dynamics of Internet Pornography Exposure for Youth” Psychology and
Behavior 11, no. 6 (November 2008): 691.

176

or women, to a sexual object. However, Barth’s Christological anthropology shows that
humanity is valued, both body and soul, because of it’s relationship with Christ and thus
it cannot be thrown on the trash heap nor can it be elevated to idolatry.
Also Barth’s Christological anthropology critiques any and all epicurean strands
that exist within culture, both inside and outside of the church. When the body is treated
as an object for pleasure, gastronomically, sexually, sensually or otherwise, it ceases to
be humanity as it was created to be. Such an understanding of humanity mars the image
of humanity seen in Jesus Christ and it thus can be understood in no other way than sinful
debasement of God’s good creation. In addition, Barth’s concept of the embodied soul
means that the Christian can do no other than deny any stoic conceptions of humanity.
The physical life of Christ and the physical ministry — healing the sick and feeding the
hungry — shows that humanity cannot be reduced to mental processes.
This Christological anthropology stands against Karl Marx’s description of
humanity. Marx defines the nature of human beings by their ability to produce with and
for others641 — an anthropological description adopted by both socialist and capitalist
systems — resulting in human meaning and worth being derived from particular human
action and human ability. Human worth is bound to human productivity. While Marxist
thought may no longer be en vogue, Marx’s conception of humanity continues to ring
true in contemporary Western Culture. Individuals of all ideological polarities find
human worth in human accomplishment — for the right, human worth is found in the
accomplishment of human liberty and economic prosperity, while for the political left,
human worth is found in the accomplishment of human and social equality.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
641

Allen Wood, “Marx, Karl,” in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. Ted Honderich (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1995), 525.

177

For the political right, self-worth is found in the amassing of wealth and the
ability to experience life, while for the political left, self-worth is accomplishing social
activity and producing equality — both sides, reflecting Marx’s concept see self-worth as
result of human production. Even within the church it is not uncommon for humanity to
derive self-worth based on human productivity under the guise of the Christian religion,
whether it is through souls saved, missionaries sent, buildings built, or people in the
pews. It is against this understanding of humanity that Barth’s Christological
anthropology stands as such a stinging critique. For Barth, humanity holds value not
because of production or ability, but as a result of the relationship humanity encounters in
Jesus Christ with the truly human. As a result humanity does not point to its
accomplishments — great and small — in order to find value, but instead, along with
John the Baptist, points to the man on the cross to find meaning.642 True humanity finds
meaning in the immutable God. Any attempt by humanity to define itself and derive
meaning and value from human production will thus be seen as works of
righteousness.643
The reality is that this project has shown that Karl Barth was consistent in his
conceptions of anthropology, from the “No” of The Epistle to the Romans to the creative
and significant “Yes” of §44 of his Church Dogmatics. This has consistency for three
significant groups: the church as a whole, the individual disciple of Christ, and
particularly the scholar who wishes to portray the truth of the Gospel throughout their
scholarly work.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
642

This can be exemplified by Matthias Grüwald’s paining, Isenheim Altarpiece. Matthias Grüwald,
Isenheim Altarpiece, 1515, Unterlinden Museum, Alsace, France.
G+*!-./01!2./5!1H?0=815!3!A;4I5J>3518!2.1;0;<9@!/2!:4;B/815!2.1!>35/5!7;4!3!2.1;0;<9!;7!A;4I!368!
B;?32/;6F!

178

Barth’s consistent presentation of humanity as grounded in the person of Jesus
Christ both encourages and challenges the church. Barth’s consistent presentation of
humanity’s identification with Christ encourages the church to be consistent with a true
presentation of the Gospel throughout various cultural and social pressures and reality.
Also, Barth’s consistency challenges the church to respond to cultural and social changes
— changing the form of the message it portrays yet never changing the message itself,
which is the Gospel of Christ. As Barth’s description of humanity had different emphasis’
in The Epistle to the Romans in relation to the optimism of pre-war imperial Germany
than in Church Dogmatics, written in the broken world of post world war two Europe that
existed within the shadow of the nuclear age, and the existential crisis that resulted,
which received Barth’s affirmative statement on the ability of humanity in Christ. So the
church must respond from the perspective of the Gospel to whatever cultural setting
within which it exists.
For the individual disciple of Christ, as part of the church, the consistency of
Barth’s description of humanity, being grounded in God Himself by way of Christ’s
humanity encourages the individual to understand themselves and their fellow humans in
light of this consistently theological description of humanity, responding to the various
shifts and changes in the surrounding zeitgeist but never moving from the consistent
epistemological bedrock of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ.
For the scholarly audience, the consistency of Barth in his proclamation of a
Christological anthropology offers a quintessential example of a thinker who fervently
engaged the changing world around him and aptly applied the Word of God to the
context in which he lived and wrote. Though Barth’s context changed throughout his

179

lifetime, he continued to express a clear and consistent conviction that underpinned his
concept of humanity, that humanity is grounded in the one person of Jesus Christ.
Questions for Further Study
This project produces a number of significant questions that can only be pursued
through further study either because they fall outside of the scope of this particular study
or require further expertise in fields adjacent to theology.
First, and potentially most significant for the contemporary Canadian context is the
question of how does a Christological conception of humanity — as displayed by Barth
— respond to end of life issues that are continuing to surface due to advances in medical
technology and the continuing public discussion regarding the right of terminally ill
individuals to die.
Second, Barth’s concept of Christological anthropology, which binds body and soul
together as besouled body and embodied soul, brings the questions of how such a
theological concept of anthropology responds to Queer theology which purposes, and is
based upon, a rift between sex and gender. While the church has historically caused much
hurt in its strong, bombastic responses to such alternative lifestyles, Christian theology
must lovingly engage such anthropological descriptions that are gaining ascendancy,
particularly in social sciences, which suggest a division between sex and gender.
Third, Barth’s concept of Christological anthropology and the associated concept of
true human freedom, which is based not on a removal of exterior limitations, but instead
the ability to act as humanity has been created to, as truly human, provides the possibility
of conflict with ecclesiastical models within the Free Church tradition and particularly
with Baptist concepts of freedom, particularly the central Baptist concept of “soul

180

liberty.” Barth’s concept of human freedom demands reflection and a response by groups,
including Baptists, whose ecclesiastical concepts have largely been influenced by the
enlightenment concept of liberty.
Barth’s Christological anthropology may seem foreign, particularly to Western
society, but the power of such a Christological description of humanity is evident in that
it allows humanity to freely exist in the reality that humanity was created to indwell. Such
a Christological existence is not a foreign experience to humanity, but like the prodigal
who sojourned in the far country644 existing within and living out of this Christological
construct is a return to freedom and rich living provided by our Heavenly Father.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
644

Luke 15:11-32.

181

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and Historical Introduction. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012.
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198

Curriculum Vitae

Tyler Harper, BA, MDiv, MTh
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