ABSTRACT
The move that Karl Barth makes in CD IV/4 has ramifications for some central aspects of his theology. As Eberhard Jungel puts it, Barth has 'de-sacramentalized proclamation'. Helmut Gollwitzer reports a private conversation in 1961, in which he attempted to convince Barth that he could maintain an instrumental role for the human being in proclamation, without entailing a 'sacramental automatism'. The elimination of the sacramental action of baptism with water undermines a good deal of Barth's theology in the earlier volumes, and not just his theology of proclamation. Barth seems to adopt two different attitudes toward the Bible in CD IV. Barth affirms human ethical agency in his treatment of baptism by devaluing ecclesial mediation. He places sacraments under the rubric of ethics, and thus, in 'ethicizing' baptism he de-sacramentalizes the Church, which he had earlier described as the 'sacramental area' created by the action of God in Christ and through the Holy Spirit.
