An Ode to Barth

I had my final class on Barth last night.  If I were a poet, I would write an ode to Barth. 

Revelation!
Ah, Barth
Your sentences run on like the mighty river
of God's wrath

Just kidding!  So we talked about one of Balthasar's critiques of Barth's doctrine of justification, which is that it's too forensic.  Justification must not be mere hope but a present reality, and an internal transformation, not an outward legal status (Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, 370).  I said that justification does have a forensic quality in Barth's thought, since he refers to it as a sentence and verdict, but it is more than this.  "In the light of this Christian faith itself, as man's subjection to this verdict, can be understood as a form of the being of the new man" (Barth, Dogmatics IV.1, 96). 

We discussed to what extent Barth allows the language of participation or sharing in God's being.  The closest we could find was that as a new creation, man is "a copy, a parallel, a likeness of His being and activity for him...a reflection of His perfection, a little light in His great light" (Barth 775).  But I was sure I'd seen the word participate somewhere - and then I found it!  It was my little triumph.  "But this being will be a being by the side of God, the participation of man in the being and life of God" (Barth 113).  However, this paragraph refers to eternal life, which kind of proves Balt's point. 

So is Balt right?  Is Barth's doctrine of justification too eschatalogical and forensic?  I tried to say that Barth is only preventing the use of being as a static category.  His emphasis of event always demonstrates the priority of God's activity and revelation in order to protect it from any hint of human effort in salvation. 

We also talked about the relationship between sin and grace.  The prof gave a plumbing analogy.  Balt sees us as clogged pipes, and grace is Draino.  Barth would say the pipes are rusty and no good.  Destroy the pipes.  We need new pipes!  Christ can give us new pipes.  Or, does Christ unclog our pipes?  Does Barth make grace too disruptive?  I guess this is the classic Catholic-Reform debate. 

Ah, Barth! Your volumes are as thick and heavy
as our sin
your tiny print confounds me
as does God's judgment