In Barth, the theme of unio Christi is not explicitly addressed until late in the fourth volume of the Church Dogmatics. He places it under the heading of ‘Vocation’. As is well known, Barth’s soteriology is profoundly christocentric. Reconciliation with God can only be found in Christ, who is the locus for all the themes of reconciliation: election, justification, sanctification and so on. For Barth, the role of union with Christ is circumscribed by his insistence on the actual moments of event, decision and personal encounter, on the one hand; and, on the other, his emphasis on the objective work and experience of Christ as opposed to the human response of faith and obedience.
Barth is no mystic, and so is determined to distinguish himself from the charge. He deploys the term ‘fellowship’. He emphasises that the Christian’s relationship to Jesus Christ is one of ‘encounter’ or ‘confrontation’ . ‘We have’, he writes, ‘and encounter in time between two personal partners who do not lose but keep their identity and particularity in this encounter’ (IV.3.2.547). Union with Christ does not involved an extension of the incarnation, but rather a response to the prophetic call of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. ‘The Christian’s union with Christ consists in this dynamic relationship of call and response, in which the Christian is voluntarily united with Christ in will and action, knows the self to be justified and sanctified in Christ, and awakens to his or her genuine humanity’ (Evans, p. 244). Barth’s objectivism – a response to the subjective experientialism of his forebears – means that he can only distinguish the Christian from the non-Christian by dint of knowledge of the work of Christ. Evans concludes:
...for Barth’s view of the unio Christi, act has replaced state and condition, reconciliation accomplished has to a considerable degree overshadowed redemption applied, and the extra nos has eclipsed the intra nos. In short, “union with Christ”... has been largely replaced by “reconciliation already in Christ”.
4 comments:
Michael,
Do think union with Christ is an umbrella concept/category like say regeneration or a discrete step in salvation?
Barth's bullsh*t.
One sermon of Wesley, one paragraph of Kierkegaard reduces Barth to meaninglessness. For that matter, Barthians are mostly lying hacks and opportunists--like the Faith and Theology salesmen, or even worse,Kotsko and his little creepo-marxist wannabes. Sad, but true.
Start over, with like Augustine re Mendacity. Or the Beatitudes
@Luke - umbrella is doing it for me at the moment.
@J - well, now, that's a scholarly way to approach it!
Actually, thinking about this post, I do think that union with Christ is a more pervasive category, or underlying theme in Barth than this post acknowledges.
Michael,
Would you say union with Christ should form the basis of understanding the Lord's Supper?
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