ABSTRACT
This chapter is an exposition of CD IV/1, §60, ‘The Pride and Fall of Man’. It examines Barth’s account of the doctrine of the fall, with an emphasis on his actualistic emendation of the Augustinian doctrine of original sin. Barth redefines human nature as a total determination of the human being (Sein/Dasein) ‘from above’ by the covenantal history of reconciliatory grace. Human nature as such remains totally intact in the historical state of sin. The human being, however, is also determined ‘from below’ by the Adamic world-history of total corruption. With this dialectical construal of the human being in terms of sin and grace, Barth redefines original sin as the radically sinful activities and decisions that determine the confinement of human beings to the historical condition of fallenness.
