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Barth (CD 4.1) attacks the notion that the incarnation is a "contradiction" or "paradox" or "rift" in God on two bases. First, he argues that there cannot be any contradiction in God; God is a God peace, not of confusion. Second, he argues that we only draw this conclusion if we come to Jesus with prior conceptions of a "supreme being" instead of allowing the fact of Jesus to define "deity" for us. This (p 186) summarizes this part of his argument, which is not only an argument with the tradition of paradoxical Christology but also with his own earlier formulations:
"It is not for us to speak of a contradiction or rift in the being of God, but to learn to correct our notions of the being of God, to reconstitute them in the light of the fact that He does this. We may believe that God can and must only be absolute in contrast to all that is relative, exalted in contrast to all that is lowly, active in contrast to all that is suffering, inviolable in contrast to all temptation, transcendent in contrast to immanence, and therefore divine in contrast to everything human, in shirt that He can and must be only 'Wholly Other.' But such beliefs are shown to be quite untenable, and corrupt and pagan, by the fact that God does in fact be and do this in Jesus Christ. We cannot make them the standard by which to measure what God can or cannot do, or the basis of the judgment that in doing this He brings Himself into self-contradiction. By doing this God proves to us that He can do it, that to do it is within His nature. And He shows Himself to be more great and rich and sovereign than we had ever imagined. And our ideas of His nature must be guided by this, and not VICE VERSA."
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, November 26, 2003 at 10:15 AM
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