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3 Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Atonement At a small Hindu monastery near Princeton, New Jersey, my wife and I recently spent an hour conversing with a monk who had written commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita and extolled the Upanishads as the highest form of Hindu wisdom. Pointing us toward the unity behind the multiplicity of Hindu deities, he encouraged us to see all religious paths as parallel ascents to higher spiritual planes on which distinctions blur and all is one. He spoke of undertaking rigorous cleansing practices to rid himself of impurity in the confident hope of reaching Moksha, the release from reincarnation. I then offered the classically Christian view, explaining that I am hopelessly sinful and that God, out of love, descended to me in Jesus Christ because I could not ascend to God. Jesus Christ, through his life, death, and resurrection, reconciles humanity with God in fellowship beyond the reach of ascetic practice, self-improvement, or ritual purity. At this point he stopped me and exclaimed, “That’s the problem with the world!” I smiled, appreciative of his transparent response. We continued our conversation with the deepened respect that acknowledges real difference. As in Paul’s day, the cross so often causes offense as foolishness.1 Yet in the cross of Jesus Christ, Christians claim that they find peace with God and reconciliation with their Creator. Rather than being the problem with the world, Jesus’ cross is our only hope. The rest of this book traces the union of atonement for sin and liberation from unjust suffering throughout Barth’s most complete treatment of the cross: the Church Dogmatics, IV. With minor variations in content, the passage examined in the last chapter (“The Mercy and Righteousness of God”) anticipates the union of atonement and liberation interwoven throughout CD IV. In CD IV, Barth offers three descriptions of humanity’s reconciliation with God: the forensic, priestly, and Christus victor accounts. These three Scripturally based vantage points remain irreducibly distinct and therefore resist synthesis. 1. 1 Cor. 1:18–25. 97 Although two of the three (the forensic and the priestly accounts) approximate each other and may be coordinated to an extent, each must be held in tension with the others through a “strategy of juxtaposition.”2 I begin this chapter by sketching Barth’s understanding of the relation between sin and suffering in CD IV. I then move on to the christological presuppositions of Barth’s doctrine of reconciliation found in CD IV/1, “The Way of the Son of God into the Far Country.”3 I will then analyze Barth’s three accounts of atonement, beginning with his interrelated forensic and priestly presentations in CD IV/1, “The Judge Judged in Our Place,”4 and culminating with his use of the Christus victor model in CD IV/3.1, “Jesus is Victor.”5 Through this analysis, a distinct ordering will emerge of the relation between sin and suffering, atonement and liberation. Throughout his discussion of atonement, Barth displays both moves (the union of Hegelian categories in formal structure and the interweaving of eternal, spiritual and temporal, material reality in theological content) by which he unites atonement and liberation. Although his discussion at this point places a clear accent upon the eternal, spiritual character of reconciliation, the next chapter traces the temporal, material outworking of Christ’s work in the believer’s prophetic vocation. Thomas F. Torrance and Jon Sobrino continue their conversations with Barth throughout this chapter. Torrance will place sin at the center of all human ills, emphasize Chalcedonian Christology, integrate the forensic and priestly models of atonement, and emphasize Christ’s eternal, spiritual victory on the cross. Yet he will consistently bypass the sociopolitical significance of the incarnation and the cross. In contrast, Sobrino will interpret “sin” primarily as social injustice, build his Christology on the liberative aspects of Jesus’ ministry, reinterpret the forensic model in liberationist terms, and emphasize the ongoing struggle for justice rather than a victory achieved by Jesus in the distant past. Unfortunately, Sobrino leaves little room for traditional atonement theories and in effect undermines the uniqueness of Christ. When brought into conversation 2. George Hunsinger, “Karl Barth's Christology: Its Basic Chalcedonian Character (1999),” in Disruptive Grace: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 136; see also 135, 140. See Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics I/1, trans. G. W. Bromiley, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975), “The Speech of...

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