Very god, very man : a theological exploration of Karl Barth’s christological anthropology

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?