Virgin Birth

A. N. S. Lane summarizes some themes of Barth’s treatment of the virgin birth: “Barth saw in the virgin birth the expression of a wider truth that is fundamental to his theology. It shows that ‘human nature possesses no capacity for becoming the human nature of Jesus Christ, the place of divine revelation’.  While it does become his nature, this is not because of any attributes that it already possesses but rather because of what it suffers and receives at the hand of God. The virgin birth, therefore, is a further denial of man’s natural capacity for God, a favourite theme with Barth. It contains a judgement upon man, rot because he is a creature but because he is a disobedient creature.”