Third Article and Grace

Barth argues that the Third Article of the Creed had to be finished before the church could truly wrestle with the doctrine of grace: ?It is logical that this doctrine [of the Spirit] had to be the last stage in the development of the trinitarian dogma. It had to be reached before the doctrine of grace, which then became the distinctive theme of the Western Church, could become a problem, before the struggle and victory of Augustine over Pelatius could take place. The Reformation with its doctrine of justification by faith alone can also be understood only against the background of this specific dogma. Its true and total significance, of course, has never been understood in Catholicism (not even in Augustine), and only very partially even within post-Reformation Protestantism. Modernist Protestantism in its entirety has simply been a regression to pre-Nicene obscurities and ambiguities regarding the Spirit.?E