Barth's chapters on Providence highlight the existential and pastoral aspects of the doctrine. The doctrine of Providence is in a very real sense all that separates the Christian who lives in the world of tsunamis and cancer and his neighbour who lives in the same world. What makes him different? Firstly, Barth says that is because the Christian as a creature affirms his own 'creaturely occurence'. That is, the Christian accepts his own being as a creature and not as a being of pure will, or an evolved organism. But he goes on...
Our answer can be the very simple one that he sees what the others do not see...What makes him a Christian is that he sees Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in the humiliation but also in the exaltation of His humanity , and himself united with Him, belonging to HIm, his life delivered by Him, bu also placed at His disposal. (C.D. III.iii.241)
Being a Christian is looking with different eyes on the same view.
It is merely a matter of seeing things differently.
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