'A differentiated fellowship of action': Participation in Christ in Karl Barth's 'Church Dogmatics'

In this dissertation I set forth and explain Karl Barth's teaching concerning participation in Christ in his Church Dogmatics . I advance an argument for how Barth construes this event ontologically. Despite his repeated rejections of divinization, Barth's teaching concerning participation in Christ should be regarded as a positive contribution to the Church's understanding of salvation as participation in the being of God. For Barth revelation is an event of union in active distinction between the Word of God and human beings. It is a mutual indwelling, an orderly co-existence, a binding together of God and human beings in the communion of free divine lordship and correspondingly free human obedience. Jesus Christ's life history, grounded in election, constitutes the covenant of grace, and therefore participation in Christ is participation in the covenant. This participation takes an objective and a subjective form, the former being teleologically directed to the latter and thereby guaranteeing its genuine occurrence. Through his life of obedience for humanity, Jesus Christ objectively establishes the being and identity of humanity. Fittingly, therefore, it is in obedience to His command that human beings subjectively participate in Him and thereby embrace and enact their being as He has objectively defined it. God shares His being with the creature by making Himself the Lord of the creature, and the creature correspondingly receives and participates in God's being in freely active obedience. Barth's covenantal-historical anthropology flows from his doctrine of election. Subjective participation in Christ is the history in which creatures transcend their creaturely limits, not by becoming divine, but by becoming genuinely human. Grace is identical with Jesus Christ and includes three aspects (justification, sanctification and calling) which together constitute the objective being of humanity. This being is realized subjectively in the three-fold corresponding response of faith, love and hope—all acts of obedience. Barth's historical construal of participation in Christ is grounded in his historical construal of the hypostatic union, itself grounded in election. Thus, especially crucial to an accurate interpretation of participation in Christ is an accurate interpretation of Barth's doctrine of election and his covenantal Christology.