Barth on Creation | The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Karl Barth: Barth and Dogmatics

Chao, David C. “Barth on Creation.” The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Karl Barth, 31 Dec. 2019, pp. 113–124, https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119156574.ch10.

Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics (CD) is characterized as a whole and in its parts by a thoroughgoing christological determination where Jesus Christ is the one and only criterion for Christianity’s basic beliefs (CD I/2, p. 123). The rethinking of the whole of Christian doctrine from a center in Christ earned Barth’s theology the reputation for not only being “christocentric” but for being “christomonist” – that is, for denying the reality of creation and its creatures.¹ Barth, especially in his later work, explicitly denied the negative implications of “christomonism” by affirming creaturely reality.² In this essay, I treat Barth’s doctrine of creation in general and his twofold axiom of “creation as the external basis of covenant” and “covenant as the internal basis of creation” in light of the charge of christomonism. I focus primarily on the doctrine of creation as elaborated in the first part of CD III/1³ and also discuss the first part of CD IV/1 as related to creation.

In this essay, I use the language of “nature” and “grace” because Barth himself uses that language to talk about “creation” and “covenant” respectively. However, Barth’s preferred language is the language of “creation” and “covenant” because it adheres more closely to the concrete and historical language of Scripture and is less freighted with the abstract conceptuality of the scholastic theological tradition. At the same time, it is nearly impossible for Barth to remove all metaphysical language (of “essence,” “existence,” and “nature”) from his discussion of the reality and distinction of creation and its ordered relation to covenant.

In order to understand the language Barth uses, the following are some preliminary definitions of “creation,” “covenant,” “nature,” and “grace”: “Creation” is all that is not God, created by God, absolutely dependent upon God for its existence, and ordered to covenant as its final end (CD III/1, p. 96). “Covenant” is the history of God’s relationship with God’s people, in and through Israel, that finds its fulfillment through the incarnation and atonement of Jesus Christ (see CD III/1, p. 66). Barth does not define the term “nature” but uses it in reference to the meaning employed by the scholastic theological tradition. He uses the term and resignifies it christologically. “Nature,” according to the tradition, is that which distinguishes and defines one thing from another, that which unifies the parts of a thing, and in human creatures, that which is an inner principle of rational action. “Grace” is the free, unmerited act of God that benefits and reconciles God’s people; Barth refers to a general and special or twofold grace of creation and salvation (CD IV/1, pp. 8–9). And lastly, we should add that “election” is an eternal and free decision of God to be in a covenant relationship with God’s people through Jesus Christ and is the gracious beginning of all the ways and works of God (CD II/2, esp. §§32–33).

Barth generates his well-known, twofold axiom concerning creation and covenant from his interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2. Genesis 1 and 2 are two independent accounts⁴ of creation that should be read together because both accounts deal with the same God, humanity, and world (CD III/1, p. 229). Barth interprets creation in Genesis 1 in terms of the stage and theater for God’s history with God’s people and, in Genesis 2, as ordered to its final end in covenant.⁵ The charge of christomonism is rejected because Barth affirms that creation is real and distinct from covenant and because covenant requires the reality and distinction of creation in order to establish the kind of relationship God has with humanity. However, this affirmation of creation’s reality and distinction is framed within God’s eternal covenant that is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. In the course of affirming the reality and distinction of creation and its ordering to covenant, Barth shows a formal similarity to the scholastic maxim that “gratia non tollit naturam, sed perficit” [grace does not destroy nature but perfects it] (Aquinas 1948, ST I, Q. 1, Art. 8, ad 2).

This essay will demonstrate how Barth’s doctrine of creation is consistent with many features within the scholastic theological tradition’s account of the essence, existence, and nature of creaturely reality but within a robustly covenantal (and therefore christological) framework. Not only does the affirmation of the metaphysical reality and distinction of creation prevent the objection of christomonism from getting off the ground, but Barth’s own view of God’s covenantal relationship grounded in the eternal, free love of God for God’s people requires the real distinction between Creator and creatures. In the three sections that follow, I will offer an analysis of Barth’s twofold axiom of “creation as the external basis of covenant” (CD III/1, p. 94) and “covenant as the internal basis of creation” (CD III/1, p. 228) and how both these bases find their eternal ground in God. The analysis and exposition will show how the charge of christomonism fails against Barth’s doctrine of creation and how Barth’s views converge and diverge from the scholastic maxim that “grace does not destroy nature but perfects it.”

Nature and Grace Are Different

Christomonism, as rejected by Barth, is a metaphysical problem that denies the reality of creation. Thus, affirming the metaphysical reality and distinction between creation and God is the basis for any rejection of christomonism. If the Creator and creature are not metaphysically different, and share the same set of properties, then they are indiscernible and can be confused with each other, collapsed into each other, or swallowed up into each other – and thus the charge of christomonism applies. But if the Creator and creature are metaphysically different, and their relationship preserves that difference, christomonism is effectively rejected and grace does not destroy nature. Barth clearly affirms with the tradition that God and creature are metaphysically different. “God the Creator is always different in essence from His work … because no secret identity between God and the world is possible” (CD III/1, p. 89). There is no shared being between uncreated and created being. There is something really different in creaturely being: “we [human beings], in our own very different way, which cannot be compared with the being of God, but which on the basis of the divine being and life and act is a very real way, that we also are, and that we are in that we live in our time, and that we live in that we ourselves act in our own act” (CD IV/1, p. 7).

There are a number of ways that Barth describes this difference. “Nature” is the technical language used by the scholastic theological tradition to describe that by which things are different from each other. Although Barth’s preferred idiom is to speak of “creation” and “covenant,” Barth also uses the analogous language of “nature” and “grace” as seen in the following text:

Nature is not identified with grace and thus not reducible to grace. Nature and grace are really different. This difference is confirmed in the fact that nature’s existence is dependent upon God’s grace and is ordered to God’s grace. And the ordering of nature to grace does nothing to destroy or mitigate the naturalness of nature. It remains what it is – created and not uncreated. It turns out that despite Barth’s thoroughgoing christocentrism, he in fact has a traditional account of how created nature is distinguished from divine grace while being ultimately ordered to grace without losing its naturalness – all of which is formally identical to the scholastic maxim that “grace does not destroy nature but perfects it.” The key difference that Barth’s christocentrism makes in the doctrine of creation has less to do with his reflection on creation itself and more on how creation is eternally anticipated via Barth’s doctrine of election (see the section, “On God’s Free Love …”).

Creation Is a Presupposition and Preparation for Covenant

What does it mean to say that creation is the “external basis” of covenant? Barth refers to creation as an “external basis” in several ways: a “stage” for the covenant story (CD III/1, p. 44), technical condition for covenant (CD III/1, p. 97), “necessary preparation” for covenant (CD III/1, p. 97), “equipment for grace” (CD III/1, p. 231), “formal presupposition” of covenant (CD III/1, 232), and “road” or means to covenant as its goal and final end (CD III/1, pp. 60, 97). Barth spends most of his time using “external basis” to mean creation as presupposition and preparation for covenant.

In order to have a covenant, one needs to have a creation as sphere or theater for covenant to occur (CD III/1, p. 44). If covenant is fundamentally about God’s relationship with human creatures and the existence of human creatures requires the existence of creation, then covenant requires creation; because if there were no creation, then there would be no human creatures as covenant partners. Creation is the “indispensable presupposition” of covenant (CD III/1, p. 96). As the presupposition of covenant, creation “makes possible, prepares and lays the foundation for the work and Word of God” (CD III/1, p. 66). Moreover, for Barth, the covenant is a history of God’s relationship with God’s people. This history has a beginning in time and this beginning in time is creation. Creation precedes covenant history as preparation for and presupposition of that history. The language of preparation and presupposition all point to the continuity Barth wants to preserve between creation and covenant while maintaining their difference. Creation and covenant are not identical, they are different (CD III/1, p. 232), but in their difference they should not be separated.

The language of presupposition also allows important formal distinctions into Barth’s strongly unified view of God’s act. Barth’s emphasis on the oneness of God and of God’s eternal act might tend to monism if it were not for the distinctions (e.g. external basis, internal basis) he uses to describe the acts of God ad extra. These distinctions take on the language of “presupposition” to allow for conceptual differentiations of the various submovements of God. Again, these distinctions prevent the collapse of the Creator–creature distinction and prevent the charge of christomonism from getting off the ground.

The Covenantal Relationship Requires the Metaphysical Difference Between God and Creature

The metaphysical existence and essence of the creature are the object of divine love. Not only does the divine love admit of metaphysical otherness, but once the divine love has decided to be in fellowship with humanity, the existence and essence of the creature becomes a necessary requirement of divine love. The existence and essence of the creature are no external necessity imposed upon God from without. And yet, the existence and essence of the creature are a necessity of God’s freely given love for the human covenant partner (first through the election of Jesus Christ and subsequently in and through Israel and the church). “Inasmuch as the love of God did not content itself in that eternal covenant as such, in so far as the love of God intended to give the covenant form outside the divine realm, the love of God itself made this external ground of covenant, the existence and essence of the creature and of creation, necessary” (KD III/1, p. 107, my translation, italics mine; CD III/1, p. 97). As the object of God’s eternal love, creation is the technical condition needed for covenant (CD III/1, p. 97). But it is God’s eternal free love in itself that is the internal condition for covenant (see the section “God’s Free Love…”). The metaphysical distinction between creature and Creator is the presupposition of God’s love of the other. Without this metaphysical otherness, God’s love would not be the gracious love that it is. “The existence and being of the creature willed and constituted by God are the object and to that extent the presupposition of His love” (CD III/1, p. 97).

What can be inferred from this statement by Barth? One inference is that the naturalness of nature is a prerequisite for the role of creatures as covenant partners. Barth fully affirms the existence, being, and nature of creation as created and not uncreated. And creation’s status is secure because it is the “indispensable presupposition” of covenant (CD III/1, p. 96). Moreover, God’s covenantal relationship is not threatened but confirmed by the being and nature of creatures as creatures. The eternal covenant is between two metaphysically different beings: the Creator and creatures. “In virtue of its being and nature, the creature is destined, prepared, and equipped to be a partner of this covenant. This covenant cannot be seriously threatened or attacked by the nature of the creature or its surroundings, nor by any attribute of man and the world. By its whole nature the creature is destined and disposed for this covenant” (CD III/1, p. 97). Without differentiating creation from covenant, there would be no covenant. Without the existence and being of creatures, there would be no “other,” no partner for God to be in covenant. The metaphysical reality and distinction of creation is a necessary condition for the kind of covenant relationship Barth affirms.

The significance of these claims in relation to the charge of christomonism is that when Barth affirms God’s free love, it is a love that has eternally decided to be in a relationship with human creatures. Because human creatures by definition are metaphysically other than God, the covenant between God and creatures requires a metaphysical difference that must be maintained and secured in order for the relation to exist. There is no possibility of christomonism (the denial of the full reality of the creature) when the full reality of the creature (in all its metaphysical existence, essence, and nature) is a requirement of that covenantal relationship.

Barth’s language that covenant is the “internal basis” for creation is a statement of how creation is framed by covenant as its source and fulfillment. Creation is dependent upon covenant both for its existence⁶ and for its final end and perfection. After having established the metaphysical reality and distinction of creation, Barth then situates all of creation with God’s eternal covenant as its source and ultimate end. What is most distinctive in Barth’s doctrine of creation is not merely that it is ordered to and perfected in covenant, but that the trinitarian basis for the unity of creation and covenant cannot be lost. Barth is insistent that the first and second articles of the creed be read together.

Fundamental to Barth’s strictures against natural theology is his anxiety about an independent basis for knowing God that would render revelation and the grace of reconciliation superfluous. This epistemological concern has its metaphysical basis in Barth’s rejection of an independent creation, which would have its existence from itself and be conceived apart from reconciliation. Although the doctrine of creation ex nihilo establishes creation’s absolute dependence upon the Creator God for its existence, Barth’s real concern is to establish creation’s dependence upon covenant for the fulfillment and perfection of creation.⁷ “Thus the covenant is the goal of creation and creation the way to the covenant” (CD III/1, p. 97). There is a twofold notion of absolute dependence: in terms of creation’s existence based upon God’s sovereign power and rule and in terms of creation’s fulfillment and perfection in covenant.

Creation Is Dependent on God for Its Existence

“[T]he affirmation of the world’s dependence on God is an ‘essential element’ in the Christian confession, identical with the Christian doctrine of creation, only if it speaks of an absolutely definite God—who is also recognised as the Lord and Ruler of that history—and of the world’s dependence on this God” (CD III/1, p. 45). Not only is creation absolutely dependent upon God for its existence, but for Barth, it is important to know exactly who this God is. We are not talking about a mere God-in-general but the Lord and Ruler of history and the world. “Absolute dependence” according to Barth needs the further determination of God’s rulership in order to be a concept adequate to the God revealed in the scriptural narrative. For Barth, theological concepts must be determinate. And the ultimate determination and specification of God’s identity comes from reconciliation – Christ’s atoning work on the cross. The identity of the Creator is identical with the identity of the Reconciler. Without this unity of identity between the first and second articles of the creed, one does not have a Christian doctrine of creation (see CD III/1, p. 45).

Barth affirms that the creature owes its very existence to the creator. “The right of the Creator in respect of the creature is based on the simple fact that the latter belongs to Him, not by subsequent acquisition, but as an original possession, in and with the very existence which it owes to Him” (CD III/1, p. 36, italics added). Barth clearly understands that the creature’s absolute dependence upon the Creator ramifies creation’s entire reality. There is no point, no place, no time in which creation is never in absolute dependence upon its Creator. This is a crucial point because it addresses Barth’s fear of an independent creation. Barth cannot fear a metaphysically independent creation because the doctrine of creation out of nothing, which Barth affirms, secures creation’s absolute dependence upon God.

Creation Is Ordered to Covenant as Means to Final End

Creation is ordered to covenant and depends on covenant as its final end: “Thus the covenant is the goal of creation and creation the way to the covenant” (CD III/1, p. 97). Creation does not ultimately aim at the kingdom, power, and glory of humanity but rather aims at the history of God in covenant (CD III/1, p. 90). There is no creation nor “natural system of reality” independent and withdrawn from the sphere of grace because the covenant of reconciliation is the final word of God for all of creation (CD III/1, p. 62).

Barth justifies his claim that creation is ordered to covenant through his reading of Scripture’s drama of salvation. Because Scripture as a whole narrates one drama, creation is prehistory to covenant history and not independent from covenant history. The two creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2 are a prehistory of the people of Israel (CD III/1, p. 63). There is an internal relation between creation and the covenant history of Israel because the Creator God is the God of Israel (CD III/1, p. 65). They are the same God. “As Creator He is already the same as He becomes later as the God of Sinai and of Zion. And He will later reveal Himself on Sinai and in Zion as the same as he has spoken and acted there. The decisive commentary on the biblical histories of creation is the rest of the Old Testament” (CD III/1, p. 65).

The means-to-end structure that orders creation to covenant takes on an instrumental character when Barth talks about creation as the stage and equipment for grace. Every story requires a stage upon which to tell the story. Covenant is the story of God’s relationship with God’s people – that God did not desire to be alone and elected a human partner to have fellowship. Creation is the stage upon which this story is told. Moreover, Barth understands that for grace to be grace, it must be received by something. Barth describes the order and relation between nature and grace as one of preparation. “Creation is one long preparation, and therefore the being and existence of the creature one long readiness, for what God will intend and do with it in the history of the covenant. Its nature is simply its equipment for grace” (CD III/1, p. 231). Creation and nature are the instruments of grace serving as its equipment. The instrumental quality of creation as means to the end of covenant, however, is no denial of the metaphysical reality, distinction, and goodness⁸ of creation. In this section, we have emphasized God’s grace in giving creation its existence that is fulfilled and perfected in covenant – all of which does not compete against the claims presented in the previous section that established the metaphysical reality and distinction of creation. Within Barth’s covenantal framework, grace does not swallow up and destroy nature but fulfills and perfects it.

One Covenant, One Will, One God

In the previous two sections, we discussed creation as the external basis of covenant and covenant as the internal basis of creation. Now we will discuss how Barth locates both bases eternally in God. The exegetical and historical relation of type (creation) and antitype (covenant) is taken into God’s eternity which is prototype (CD III/1, pp. 67, 68, 96).

Barth’s views on covenant and its relation to the doctrine of God are framed against the weaknesses in federal theology’s view of covenants (see the small print section concluding CD IV/1, §57.2). Federal theologians (e.g. Johannes Cocceius) argue for multiple covenants stemming from an original covenant of works that is successively abrogated and then reconciled by the covenant of grace. Barth asks: How is the eternal God of the covenant of works related to the eternal God of the covenant of grace if grace is a response to the abrogations of the original covenant of works? By turning from a covenant of works to a covenant of grace, does God show Godself to no longer be righteous but now merciful? How then are the righteousness and mercy of God reconciled in the eternal being of God? Barth finds federal theology to be without an adequate response. Instead, Barth argues for one eternal covenant of grace that removes any ambiguity surrounding the question, Which God is the true God: the God of the covenant of works or the God of the covenant of grace? However, in order for one eternal covenant of grace to be grounded in the single will of an eternal God, Barth faces the challenge of making eternity contain creation without making creation eternal. In this section, we examine the claims Barth makes to support this interpretation of a single covenant, single divine will, and a single, eternal God.

Federal theology serves as a helpful counterpoint to Barth’s view. Barth argues that the dualistic structure of covenants in federal theology introduces a fissure into God’s eternal being. Barth overcomes this problem by making Jesus Christ the beginning of all the ways and works of God and the one who is both elect and reprobate. Where federal theology equivocates as to how the one, eternal God can be the God of both the covenant of works and the covenant of grace, Barth unambiguously commits the divine being to a single eternal will and covenant of grace:

The eternal preexistence of Jesus Christ is the content of this single act of God’s eternal will. Election signifies God’s desire not to be without humanity in God’s perfect triunity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit but to include in God’s own eternal existence the existence of humanity through the God-man Jesus Christ (CD IV/1, p. 7). In the free election of grace, the existence of humanity is already present, presumed, and assumed into God’s eternal unity. Humanity is not an afterthought in God’s eternal will. God’s eternal will that elects Jesus Christ contains within that decision a determination to be for all of humanity. The key point for the doctrine of creation is that Jesus Christ cannot be eternally anticipated in God’s free election apart from the human nature of Christ and the creation presupposed by that human nature. God’s free election of grace entails an eternal decision that anticipates creation because the election of Jesus Christ requires it. It is important to note that creation is eternally anticipated and mediated by election and retains its creaturely properties. Creation does not become eternal on Barth’s account because it is mediated by election, covenant, and christology.

God Is the Inner Basis of Covenant

Creation is the external basis of the covenant. Creation is not the inner basis of covenant. Only God is the inner basis of covenant (CD III/1, p. 97). What does it mean to say that God is the inner basis of the covenant? It means that God’s free love has chosen Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world and is the ground for the eternal covenant that is realized in history. The outcome is that creation is eternally anticipated by election and historically fulfilled in covenant. In other words, when Barth talks about the eternal election of Jesus Christ – and his history in incarnation and atonement – that history of salvation requiring a created realm is presupposed by eternal election. By way of anticipation, the created history of Jesus Christ is internal to God’s eternal election of Jesus Christ. Creation, which serves as the stage for the history of Jesus Christ, is therefore not external to God’s eternal election.

The eternal love, peace, and harmony between Father and Son are not only undisturbed but actually confirmed in the Son taking on flesh, suffering, dying, and being raised again. The salvation history enacted by the Son is no surprise and no disruption to the eternal Godhead because it is eternally anticipated and presupposed by election. Election, in itself, presupposes the history of Jesus Christ in incarnation and atonement that in turn presupposes creation as the stage for that drama of salvation. With Barth’s doctrine of election (and therefore doctrine of God), grace presupposes nature by way of the human nature of Jesus Christ. And because the human nature of Jesus Christ presupposes the realm of creation, creation (in all its otherness to God) exists by way of anticipation in eternal election. To claim that election presupposes creation, does not divinize creation; there is no loss of creation’s creaturely status. Creation is not so taken up into God as to become divine. Creation is not eternal. Creation is not absolutely independent. Creation’s absolute, metaphysical otherness is maintained even as creation is eternally contained by way of anticipation in election. The upshot is that creation preexists in election such that its reality as other is guaranteed and not compromised.

Necessity of Creation Is Consistent with Divine Perfection and Freedom

Barth explicitly uses the language of necessity to describe nature’s relation to grace. “Inasmuch as the love of God did not content itself in that eternal covenant as such, in so far as the love of God intended to give the covenant form outside the divine realm, the love of God itself made this external ground of covenant, the existence and essence of the creature and of creation, necessary” (KD III/1, p. 107, my translation, italics mine; CD III/1, p. 97). Creation stands in a necessary relation to election while being absolutely dependent upon God as source and final end. The relations of necessity and absolute dependence are not mutually exclusive but follow from different and compatible premises. Creation’s necessity is by way of God’s free love in election and is considered a hypothetical or suppositional necessity because it depends upon and supposes election (cf. Aquinas 1948, ST I, Q. 19, Art. 3, resp.). Creation’s absolute dependence is by way of God as source and final end. Creation is both absolutely dependent upon God and also necessary to the divine election.⁹ The creaturely realm is necessary for the actualization of the covenant of love but only as creation is a perfectly free act.¹⁰

Conclusion

The first section of this essay shows why the objection of christomonism cannot get off the ground if the metaphysical reality and distinction of creation are not only affirmed by Barth but required by Barth’s view of covenant. The first two sections as a whole also show how Barth’s views are formally identical to the scholastic tradition’s view that “grace does not destroy nature but perfects it.” Barth’s divergence from the scholastic theological tradition is evident in how he frames nature’s relation to grace within a thoroughgoing covenantal framework grounded in God’s eternal election. Creation is the presupposition of covenant in that you cannot have a covenant without creation as its stage. But more basic than creation as presupposition of covenant is the claim that covenant is the source and final end of all things. First in the mind and will of God is God’s eternal decision for covenant from which creation follows. Covenant is eternal; creation is not. The status of creation is completely dependent upon the prior reality of covenant. The burden of this essay has been largely formal in following Barth’s lead to secure the grammatical priority of covenant in talking about creation while showing that Barth affirms creaturely reality and rejects christomonism. And this leads us to ask: If Barth has so clearly affirmed the metaphysical distinction and reality of creation, why does the charge of “christomonism” continue to plague Barth’s theology?¹¹

I am confident that this criticism continues because not enough attention has been given to CD III as a whole. But perhaps some of the fault lies with Barth. Barth makes the formal and grammatical distinctions, but does he confirm this with enough material content? To address this, one needs to turn to the material content of Barth’s theological anthropology (CD III/2), doctrine of providence (CD III/3), and ethics of creation (CD III/4) where his account of creaturely reality and human agency are given more explanation.

Aquinas, T. (1948). The Summa Theologica (trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province). New York: Benziger Bros.

Balthasar, H.U.v. (1992). The Theology of Karl Barth: Exposition and Interpretation (trans. E.T. Oakes). San Francisco: Ignatius.

Barth, K. (2017). Barth in Conversation: Volume 1, 1959–1962 (eds. E. Busch, K. Froehlich, D.L. Guder and D.C. David). Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox.

Berkouwer, G.C. (1956). The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth (trans. H.R. Boer). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

Horton, M.S. (2011). “Covenant, election, and incarnation: evaluating Barth’s Actualist Christology.” In: Karl Barth and American Evangelicalism (eds. B.L. McCormack and C.B. Anderson), 112–147. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

1. See for example Hans Urs von Balthasar’s criticism of the monism of the Word of God in Barth’s theology:
   “As we have seen, this monism of the Word of God, which invades the hostile world and is expressed in such Idealist categories as mediacy and immediacy, object and objectlessness, threatens time and again to swallow up the reality of the world” (Balthasar 1992, p. 94). See the shared concern in Berkouwer 1956, pp. 12, 12n6.
2. Barth rejects the negative implications of christomonism (see Barth 2017, pp. 214–215; cf. CD III/3, p. xi; CD IV/3, p. 713; CD IV/4, pp. 19, 23).
3. All references to this work are listed as page numbers parenthetically embedded in the text.
4. Barth uses the term “saga” against “myth” to preserve the prehistorical and realistic character of these accounts, see CD III/1, pp. 81–85.
5. “Creation [is] not an end in itself, but rather the institution of the theatrum Dei gloriae [theater of God’s glory], the natural ground of redemption. Redemption [is] is the end of God’s way with the world, his glory in the realization of his mercy—the spiritual ground of creation” (Barth 2017, p. 210).
6. It is proper to say that for Barth creation is absolutely dependent upon God as its ultimate source and the eternal covenant as its proximate source of existence. The phrase “eternal covenant” occurs twice in CD III/1, §41 (see CD III/1, p. 97) where it is used analogously with eternal election. In this section, I address the texts in which Barth specifies God as the source of creation’s existence. In the following section, I address how Barth can speak of creation as internal to eternal election and thus dependent on covenant as the source of its existence.
7. “Salvation is more than being. Salvation is fulfillment, the supreme, sufficient, definitive and indestructible fulfillment of being. Salvation is the perfect being which is not proper to created being as such but is still future” (CD IV/1, p. 8).
8. For Barth’s discussion of the goodness of creation see CD III/1, “The Yes of God the Creator,” for example pp. 370–372.
9. “The creature does not exist by chance. It does not merely exist, but exists meaningfully. In its existence it realizes a purpose and plan and order. It has not come into being by chance but by necessity, and therefore not as an accident but as a sign and witness of this necessity. This is already implied in the fact that it is a creature and therefore the work of the creator, of God. …The act of creation as such is the revelation of the glory of God by which He gives to the creature meaning and necessity. …Creating it, God gives it meaning and necessity” (CD III/1, pp. 229–230, translation modified; KD III/1, p. 260). “The fact that the covenant is the goal of creation is not something which is added later to the reality of the creature, as though the history of creation might equally have been succeeded by any other history. It already characterizes creation itself and as such, and therefore the being and existence of the creature. The covenant whose history had still to commence was the covenant which, as the goal appointed for creation and the creature, made creation necessary and possible, and determined and limited the creature” (CD III/1, p. 231). See also CD III/1, p. 72.
10. “It is only God’s free love that makes Him bind Himself to [the creature]. In so doing, He does not in any sense discharge a debt. How can He be impelled by anything but Himself, in perfect freedom, really to love the creature which owes its existence and nature to Him alone?” (CD III/1, p. 96).
11. See, for example, Horton 2011, pp. 146–147.