The Christological Determinant in Barth's Doctrine of Creation

Abstract

Karl Barth's Christological formulation has taken with increasing seriousness the participation of Christ in the creaturely mode of existence. His effort to interpret the Chalcedonian dogma concerning reality of Jesus Christ as two natures, God and man, united without confusion, change, division, or separation, has contributed to his conception of the creature as existing with its own proper mode of being and activity. We are not concerned to trace in detail in this essay the developments in Barth's thought which have led to modification in his understanding of creation. Fundamentally, Barth recognises that the theology of Crisis characteristic of the second edition of his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans so emphasised the timeless and transcendental character of revelation that it had no place for a conception of creaturely being and time as constitutive of the incarnation.